Bhubaneswar, July 20: A total of 26 new records were established at the 48th Junior National Aquatic Championships that concluded here at the Biju Patnaik Swimming Pool situated inside the iconic Kalinga Stadium on Wednesday.
The final day of the proceedings saw recording-breaking effort from Hashika Ramachandra of Karnataka who eclipsed the national record in 400m medley for group II girls by clocking 5:10.70. The Karnataka lass bettered the previous record of 5:13.80 held by Apeksha Fernandes of Maharashtra.
Sri Nithya Sagi of Telangana and Raghvi Ramanujan of Maharashtra finished second and third in this event recording a time of 5:26.33 and 5:27.49 respectively.
Maharashtra’s Apeksha Fernandes, meanwhile, created a new national record in the 200m breast stroke for girl’s group II. She clocked an impressive time of 2:40.36 secs to improve the previous record of 2:43.01 held by Saloni Dalal created in 2017.
Apeksha finished ahead of S Lakshya and Saanvi S Rao, both from Karnataka. While Lakshya clocked 2:45.03 to take the silver, Saanvi timed 2:46.49 to settle for bronze.
Another record of the day came in the 400m medley for girls group I. Shakthi S of Tamil Nadu smashed Sayani’s Gosh’s record of 5:15.04 clocked in 2016. Shakthi touched the pads on 5:11.77 seconds to create the new record and win the gold medal. She beat Delhi’s Bavya Sachdeva (5:14.87) and Karnataka’s A Jedidah (5:22.81).
The Best Swimmer awards for group I boys went to Utkarsh Patil of Karnataka and Devansh Parmar of Gujarat. In group II boys, the individual award went to Navaneeth Gowda of Karnataka. In the girls group I, Maharashtra’s Apeksha took home the Best Swimmer award. Hashika Ramachandra of Karnataka was declared the Best Swimmer. (UNI)
