Karnataka’s Srihari Nataraj and West Bengal’s Swadesh Mondal, thanks to their record-breaking performances, defended their Best Swimmer titles at the 35th Sub Junior and the 45th Junior National Aquatic Championships that culminated on Friday.
Swadesh won all his five events in record times and Srihari, too, set four national records and to become the fastest Indian in the 200m backstroke event.
Srihari won his fifth gold in the tournament in the 100m butterfly (boys group I) with a time of 00:56.73. Tanish George Mathew of Karnataka won the silver medal with a time of 00:57.41 while Arjun M of SSCB won bronze with a time of 00:57.94.
Madhya Pradesh’s Advait Page, with a time of 16:11.57, won the 1500m gold in boys’ group I event. He had clocked the best time by an Indian in 1500m race with a time of 15:25.98 last week in the Singapore National Swimming Championships. Sanskar Tokas of Delhi and Anurag Singh of Uttar Pradesh finished behind with times of 16:32.68 and 16:33.83 respectively.
Among the girls, Rayna Saldanha won the 200m backstroke (group I) with a time of 02:24.63. To win her second gold medal of the tournament, she beat Suvana Bhaskar of Karnataka (who claimed her first silver with a time of 02:26.88) and Shrungi Bandekar of Goa (won bronze with a time of 02:27.92).
Karnataka won the overall team championships for swimming in both the Junior Age Group with 447 points and in the Sub Junior Age Group with 250 points.