Mumbai: Maharashtra Women continues to dominate
medal tally for the state on the Second day of 70th Glenmark Senior National Aquatic Championship, here on Sunday.
Monique Gandhi got Maharashtra the perfect start on Day 2 winning the gruelling 1500m Freestyle with a time of 18:21.13 beating Shruti Mahalingam from Tamil Nadu who swam a fantastic last lap to set up a rivetting finale. Shruti clocked 18:21.53 while the bronze was picked up by her state mate P M Abhishikta who finished with a time of 18:43.59.
The 4*100m relay in the Women’s category arguably witnessed the best race of the day. Maharashtra represented by Yuga Barnale, Monique Gandhi, Trisha Karkhanis and Rayna Saldanha won the race beating early leaders Gujarat and leaders after the third leg Karnataka. The event had the best swimmers in attendance. Manaa Patel proved her class by establishing a strong lead for Gujarat after the first backstroke leg. Monique Gandhi swam a fantastic breast stroke leg but Gujarat still maintained the lead at the half way stage.
Damini Gowda proved her mettle in the butterfly leg by swimming a near flawless race giving Karnataka a slender lead over Maharashtra going into the final freestyle leg. The final leg was Rayna Saldanha all the way finishing extremely strongly to get Maharashtra the gold 04:36.31. Karnataka won silver with 04:38.33 while Gujarat won bronze with 04:41.41.
Earlier in the day, Trisha Karkhanis won a silver medal in the 200m Butterfly with a time of 02:27.94. Damini Gowda of Karnataka dominated the race winning the gold with a time of 02:21.99 while Shishti Nag of Chattisgarh won bronze with a time of 02:28.11.
The 50m butterfly saw favourite Annie Jain who trains at the Glenmark SAI programme pipped to the post by Chahat Arora of Chandigarh who won gold with a time of 00:35.11. Annie finished at 00:35.39 for the silver while A.V. Jayveena of Tamil Nadu claimed bronze with a time of 00:35.40.
Olympian Sajan Prakash of Railways who was the first Indian to break the 2 minute barrier in the 200m butterfly repeated his feat to win the gold setting a new national record clocking a time 01:59.35 followed by team mate Supriyo Mondal who clocked 02:03.42 . Manoj Mitesh representing Services won bronze with a time of 02:07.04.
