Bangladesh swimmer Samiul Islam Rafi kept his promise of an improved timing in the 2024 Paris Olympics as he clocked 53.10 seconds – his best-ever – in the heat-2 of the men’s 100-metre freestyle at the Paris La Defense Arena on Tuesday.
However, that was not enough for him to qualify for the semi-finals as he finished fifth among eight in his heat and ended up with taking 0.88 seconds more than Mauritius’s swimmer Purahoo Ovesh, who clocked 52.22 seconds to top the heat.
A total of 79 swimmers competed in 10 heats, from which the top 16 qualified for the semi-finals, while Rafi finished 69th.
In Paris, Rafi took 0.02 second less than his previous career best international timing of 53.12 seconds that he made in the same event in Thailand in April 2024.
Rafi took 5.53 seconds more than the number-one qualifier Alexy Jack of USA who finished in 47.57 seconds, while South Korea’s Hwang Sunwoo secured a semi-final spot finishing 16th with a timing of 48.41 seconds.
‘I clocked my career best but it is far behind the semifinalists. I had hoped to finish within 52 seconds,’ said Rafi, who entered to Olympics through a wildcard.
Archer Sagor Islam will take on Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Mauro Nespoli of Italy in the first round of the elimination stage of the men’s recurve individual event, beginning at 5:30pm Bangladesh Standard Time at the Esplanade des Invalides today.
Earlier on July 25, Sagor – the only athlete to directly qualify for the Paris Olympics among the five Bangladesh athletes – scored 652 points in the ranking round of the event to finish 45th among the 64 archers, while Nespoli sat at 20th with 670 points.
