Saurabh steals show

Karnataka swimmer sets new mark, Pooja sparkles

A promising youngster and a seasoned campaigner from Karnataka came up with sparkling displays to defend their crowns under fading light in the Senior National Aquatic championships at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex here on Wednesday.

Young Saurabh Sangvekar shattered the men’s 400M freestyle National record, posting three minutes 58.62 seconds. Soon after, Pooja R Alva conjured up all her experience to register a comeback victory in the women’s 100M butterfly, clocking 1:04.62 in steady drizzle.

It was Saurabh’s second gold of the meet after his win in the 800M freestyle on Monday. The 18-year-old rewrote Mandar A Divase’s three-year-old mark of 3:59.72 created at the Asian Championships in Foshan.

Saurabh had to ward off a stiff challenge from Gagan AP before prevailing over his team-mate for the second time in the championship. Gagan took the silver in 4:00.76,
“Gagan was close behind but I was always in control,” said Saurabh, who have the 1500M freestyle on Friday. “I had a slight sprain in the right shoulder but nothing serious,” added Saurabh.

Pooja trailed at the 50-metre mark (50.38 seconds) behind Aditi Dhumatkar of Maharashtra (50.08) in the 100M butterfly. However, the 22-year-old RVCE student then turned the tables to retain the crown which she won last year in Ranchi.

In the women’s 400 freestyle, Surabhi Tipre was beaten for the second time by Richa Mishra in the meet. Surabhi held the lead for most part of the see-saw battle but then the 19-year-old was pipped to the wall by a razor-thin margin of 0.85 seconds. “I have to improve my turns,” said Surabhi.

Richa timed 4:29.17 for her fourth gold, adding to her titles from the 800M freestyle, 200M backstroke and 400M individual medley.

Four meet records were broken on Wednesday. Karnataka’s 4x200M freestyle relay quartet of Gagan AP, Rohit R Havaldar, Saurabh and Aaron D’Souza clocked 7:58.36, slicing more than nine seconds off their own mark of 7:48.98.

Tamil Nadu’s MB Balakrishnan (men’s 50M backstroke, 27.16 in morning heats), Maharashtra’s Virdhawal Khade (men’s 100M butterfly, 54.92) and Maharashtra women’s  4x200M freestyle relay team (8:53.83) lowered the existing meet marks.

Hosts Maharashtra maintained their stay at the top of medal’s table with eight gold, four silver and seven bronze while Karnataka have seven gold, eight silver and six bronze.

However, Karnataka lead the points table with the points being awarded to the top six positions in each race.

Meanwhile, Karnataka men’s and women’s water polo teams crashed out of the championship. The State men went down to SSCB 2-6 while the eves lost 1-2 to Maharashtra.

Results:

Men: 400M freestyle: Saurabh Sangvekar (Kar) 3:58.62. National record (Old: 3:59.72, Mandar A Divase, Asian championships, Foshan 2009; New Meet Record; Old: 4:01.35, Saurabh, Karnataka, Ranchi 2011) 1; Gagan AP (Kar) 4:00.76. Bettered Meet Mark, 2; Mandar A Divase (Pol) 4:08.40, 3. 50M backstroke: MB Balakrishnan (TN) 27.24 seconds. Clocked 27.16 in heats, NMR (Old: 27.23, Aaron D'souza, Karnataka, Ranchi 2011) 1; Aaron D' Souza (Kar) 27.77, 2; Rohit R Havaldar (Kar) 27.96, 3. 100M butterfly: Virdhawal Khade (Mah) 54.92 seconds. NMR (Old: 55:17, Rehan Poncha, Karnataka, Jaipur 2009) 1; Sajan Prakash (RSPB) 55.84, 2; Arjun Murlidharan (Pol) 57.64, 3.

4x200M freestyle relay: Karnataka (Gagan AP, Saurabh Sangvekar, Rohit R Havaldar, Aaron D’Souza) 7:48.98. NMR (Old:  7:58.36, Karnataka, Ranchi 2011) 1; RSPB (Sajan Prakash, Merwyn Chen, G Mohan, Sarma SP Nair) 8:08.51, 2; Maharashtra (Amar Murlidharan, Apurva Sharma, Aniket Shedge, Virdhawal Khade) 8:20.12, 3.

Women: 400M freestyle: Richa Mishra (Pol) 4:29.17, 1; Surabhi Tipre (Kar) 4:29.92, 2; Aakanksha Vora (Mah) 4:37.91, 3. 50M backstroke: Jyotsna Pansare (Mah) 31.60 seconds, 1; Sony Cyriac (Ker) 31.99, 2; Maana Patel (Guj) 32.06, 3. 100M butterfly: Pooja R Alva (Kar) 1:04.62, 1; Aditi Dhumatkar (Mah) 1:05.56, 2; Jyotsna Pansare (Mah) 1:05.69, 3. 4x200M freestyle relay: Maharashtra (Aditi Dhumatkar, Monique Gandhi, Arti G, Jyotsna) 8:53.83. NMR (Old: 9:01.27, Karnataka, 2003) 1; Karnataka (Malavika V, Kshipra Mahajan, Pratima Kollali, Surabhi Tipre) 9:10.00, 2; Tamil Nadu (Sherlyn Meghna, Kavya Gopalakrishnan, Mugdha Mallareddy, Anusha Mehta) 9:32.89, 3.

Diving: Men: 1M springboard: T Hariprasad (RSPB) 323.00 points, 1; K Ramananda Sharma (SSCB) 302.95, 2; S Rabi Kumar Singh (RSPB) 266.40, 3. Women: 3M springboard: Hrutika Shriram (RSPB) 185.45 points, 1; Simran Rajani (Mah) 154.40, 2; Genevieve Atala D'costa (Goa)  132.50, 3.

Water polo: Men: Police bt Kerala 6-2; RSPB bt Manipur 8-0; SSCB: 6 (Shaon Das 3, Sarat Chandran 2, Jaya Kumar 1) bt Karnataka: 2 (Jayaram A 1, Sandeep S 1); Maharashtra bt Delhi 10-3.

Women: Maharashtra: 2 (Sayali G 1, Komal K 1) bt Karnataka: 1 (Malavika Gubbi 1); Kerala bt Delhi 10-0; Police bt Manipur 18-0.