Virdhawal Khade narrowly missed out on a medal and ended up fourth in the 50m freestyle event just 0.03 seconds behind the eventual bronze-medallist on yet another disappointing day for Indian swimmers at the Asian Games in Guangzhou on Monday.
The 19-year-old Khade, who qualified with the fifth best timing of 22.98sec, clocked 22.87sec in the finals.
China's Lu Zhiwu clocked 22.37sec to clinch the gold just 0.08 seconds ahead of Japan's Masayuki Kishida, who won silver. Another Japanese, Rammaru Harada finished third with a timing of 22.84.
Had Khade, a national champion in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle and 400m freestyle events, managed to be inside top-three, he would have become India's first swimming medallist in the Asian Games since Khazan Singh's silver in the 1986 Seoul Asiad.
Khade's performance was still a lot better than his other compatriots who cut a sorry figure in the pool failing to make any of the finals.
Arjun Jayaprakash, who was also competing in the 50m freestyle event, clocked 24.34sec to finish third in his heat but way below the eventual qualifying time.
In 100m breaststroke, Sandeep Sejwal was the only Indian in contention and he managed a timing of 1:03.67sec to finish third in his heat which was not good enough for the finals.
Similar was the story of Havaldar Rohit Rajendra and Rehan Poncha in the 200m backstroke.
Rohit managed to complete his heat in 2:12.79sec to be sixth in the standings and a good 10.25secs behind the eventual winner of his qualifying group.
Rehan finished seventh in his heat with a timing of 2:18.56sec.
In the men's 4x200m freestyle relay, the Indian team of Aaron Agnel D'souza, Anandrao Mandar Divase, Rohit and Rehan clocked 7:40.03 to finish fifth in the heats.
The timing could only fetch them a place in the back-up list for the finals.
