Veerdhawal Khade qualified for the World Championships at Barcelona in 50m freestyle after he achieved the ‘B’ qualification mark at the at the 66th Enerzal senior National aquatics championship. .
The Kolhapur-based Olympian was unstoppable, amidst churning waters, en route to registering 22.84secs against the qualifying criteria of 23.11 says The Hindu.
The National (22.55) and meet records (22.71) now remain in his custody.
Talasha Prabhu from Panaji won the women’s 50m freestyle in 27.76 on the fourth day at the Balewadi pool, proving that talent knows no barrier as long as young Indians take the initiative and create avenues to hone technique and gain confidence.
Boosted by sponsorship from the Dempo Group, her decision to shift base to Bangalore from Goa five years ago for full-time focus on swimming is paying off for the 19-year-old, guided by National coach Pradeep Kumar.
Richa Mishra was far beyond the reach of her younger rivals in 1500m freestyle, swelling her gold medal haul with 17:46.76 in the morning session.
Meanwhile a report in the Deccan Herald writes that Aaron D’Souza kept his composure during a frustrating 50-minute delay and beat back the challenge of Sandeep Sejwal to nail down his first individual title of the meet.
A power failure caused by heavy afternoon showers delayed the start of the fourth day’s proceedings even as the swimmers and technical officials took their respective positions at the pool deck. It took almost an hour to sort out of the problem.
Aaron, who had faltered in his bid in the 50 backstroke and 200 freestyle earlier, had to swim the first event of evening finals — the men’s 200M individual medley.
Sejwal of RSPB claimed silver in 2:11.38 while another Karnataka lad, Arvind M, pocketed the bronze in 2:12.95.
Meanwhile, Pooja R Alva, who won the 100M butterfly on Wednesday, completed a double by claiming the women’s 200M individual medley in 2:28.30.
In the morning, Karnataka men’s 4x100M freestyle relay team of Gagan AP, Saurabh Sangvekar, Rohit R Havaldar and Aaron D’Souza set a new meet mark, clocking 3:32.14. The relay quartet sliced more than two seconds from their own record of 3:34.55 created last year in Ranchi.
By Indian Sports News Network