Sandeep Sejwal calls his event the 50m breaststroke as one that is swum on autopilot. Yet, there was a time, just around the 40m mark, when he did admit that he thought he could even win the gold medal.

“Generally we just don’t think during a 50m event, we just go through it. But I did feel I could touch first (win),” said an overjoyed Sejwal, whose bronze was only the fourth swimming medal for India in the Asian Games.