Gold Coast CWG 2018: Sajan Prakash qualifies for 200m butterfly finals

Indian swimmer Sajan Prakash clocked a time of 1 minute and 58.87 seconds to finish fifth in Heat 2.

Gold Coast: Indian swimmer Sajan Prakash narrowly qualified for the final of swimming men's 200-metre Butterfly event of the 21st Commonwealth Games at the Optus Aquatic Centre in Australia's Gold Coast on Saturday. England's Jacob Peters topped the qualifications, clocking 1:58.42 seconds.

Prakash had earlier failed to advance to the next stage of the men`s 200-metre butterfly event in the swimming competition at the 21st Commonwealth Games (CWG) here.

Sajan, however, clocked a time of 1 minute and 58.87 seconds to finish fifth in Heat 2.

He managed an overall ninth position after the conclusion of the two heats.

The finals will be held at 3.07 pm IST today.

Meanwhile, another Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj entered the semi-finals of men's 50 metre backstroke event at the 21st Commonwealth Games in Australia's Gold Coast on Saturday.

Srihari recorded a time of 26.47 seconds to qualify in the 9th spot among 16 qualifiers in his category.

In other events, Indian weightlifters continued to dominate at the 21st CWG) in Australia's Gold Coast with the veteran Sathish Kumar Sivalingam winning a Gold in the men's 77-kg event here on Saturday.

Sivalingam won the third gold medal for India in weightlifting as he lifted 317 kg in total, 144 kg in Snatch and 173 kg in Clean-and-Jerk in Men’s 77 kg weightlifting event here.

It is his 2nd consecutive gold medal at Games, as he secured the gold in Glasgow in 2014, as well.

It is India’s 5th medal so far in Commonwealth Games 2018, and all of them have come in weightlifting so far. 

He faced a stiff competition from England’s Jack Oliver who remained on the second position, after a difficult clean-and-jerk round.

England's Jack Oliver took silver with a total of 312 kg while Francois Etoundi ensured bronze for hosts Australia with 305.