Muralidharan, Poncha fail to qualify

Melbourne, Mar 16 (UNI) In a field which proved far superior to them, India's Arjun Muralidharan and Rehan Poncha gave a dismal performance in the pool and failed to qualify in the 200m Butterfly event of the swimming competition in the Commonwealth Games here today.

In this high-voltage competition, the Indians looked vulnerable and were slow off the board and never were in the race as they sank without a trace.

In the first heat, 20-year-old Bangalore based Poncha finished fourth in the field of five swimmers with a below par timing of 2:08.72.

Same was the case with 19-year-old Arjun Muralidharan who was fifth in the six-member field in heat three after clocking 2:06.58.

Poncha's timing was well below his personal best of 2.07.24.

The heat was won by Bahamas's Jeremy Knowles who clocked 2:00.17.

Two others who qualified from this heat were Australian Joshua Krogh (2:00.53) and Guernsey's Ian Powell (2:02.26).

Muralidharan was hardly better as he put up a poor show. This heat was won by Travis Nederpelt of Australia (1:57.36) and qualifying with him were New Zealand's Andrew Mcmillian (2:00.70) and Australia's Andrew Richards (2:00.79).

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