Barring the women’s 400M freestyle, where Richa Mishra broke the National record, the defending champions held sway in every other event to swell their tally to 13 gold, 8 silver and 5 bronze medals.
Richa, who won her fourth gold, touched the wall in 4:25.76, helping her team, Police, to move up to the second spot with four gold, four silver and two bronze medals. Surbhi Tipre put up a brave fight and even led by half-a-body-length until the 200-metre mark but Richa turned the tide in her favour from then on, gradually reducing the deficit to edge out her much younger rival. Richa rewrote the record mark of 4:26.07 which Surbhi had timed at the Asian Age Group meet in Jakarta last month. Surbhi took silver in 4:29.22.
The Karnataka show started with Saurabh Sangvekar powering to his second gold, clocking four minutes 01.35 seconds to pocket the 400M freestyle title in a new meet record. The 17-year-old erased the old mark of 4:02.20 set two years back by Mandar A Divase.
Soon after, Aaron D’Souza stormed home with a gold in the 100M butterfly, posting 56.02 seconds. Aaron touched the 50-metre mark in 26.00 seconds before cantering home, comfortably overcoming the challenge of Muralidharan brothers Amar and Arjun. Aaron then completed a treble by clinching the 50M backstroke crown with a meet mark to boot and stayed on course for the best swimmer award. Aaron timed 27.23, slicing 0.23 seconds from the previous time of 27.46 created by MB Balakrishnan of Tamil Nadu in 2010.
Fariha Zaman (50 backstroke, 32.13), Pooja R Alva (100 fly, 1:04.20) and the men's and women's 4x200 freestyle relay teams were the other gold medal winners for Karnataka.
Results: Men: 400M freestyle: Saurabh Sangvekar (Kar) 4:01.35, 1. New Meet Record (Old: 4:02.20, Mandar Divase, Police, 2009); Mandar A Divase (Pol) 4:05.34, 2; Sujay Shah (Guj) 4:09.55, 3.
50M backstroke: Aaron D’Souza (Kar) 27.23, 1. NMR (Old: 27.46, M B Balakrishnan, TN, 2010); Rohit R Havaldar (Kar) 27.84, 2; Sunil Kumar (SSCB) 28.09, 3.
100M butterfly: Aaron D’Souza (Kar) 56.02, 1. Amar Muralidharan (Mah) 57.08, 2; Arjun Muralidharan (Pol) 57.49, 3.
4x200M freestyle relay: Karnataka (Saurabh Sangvekar, Rehan Poncha, Rohit R Havaldar, Aaron D’Souza) 7:58.36, 1. NMR (Old: 8:02.56, Karnataka, 2010); RSPB (Sarma SP Nair, G Mohan, Praveen Tokas, Sajan Prakash) 8:19.75, 2; SSCB (Madhu PS, Sojjo Joseph, Saneesh Gopal, Shibu M) 8:23.45, 3.
Women: 400M freestyle: Richa Mishra (Pol) 4:25.76, 1. National Record (Old: 4:26.07, Surabhi Tipre, Asian Age Group meet, Jakarta 2011. NMR; Old: 4:28.97, Richa, 2009); Surabhi Tipre (Kar) 4:29.22, 2; Kshipra Mahajan (Kar) 4:38.93, 3.
50M backstroke: Fariha Zaman (Kar) 32.13, 1; Sherlyn Meghna (TN) 32.23, 2; Ananya Panigrahi (Mah) 32.64, 3.
100M butterfly: Pooja R Alva (Kar) 1:04.20, 1; Aditi Dhumatkar (Mah) 1;05.93, 2; Rujuta Bhatt (Mah) 1:07.36, 3.
4x200M freestyle relay: Karnataka (Kshipra Mahajan, Sneha T, Pooja R Alva, Surabhi Tipre) 9:04.80, 1; Maharashtra (Aakanksha Vora, Ananya Panigrahi, Aditi M, Arti Ghorpade) 9:14.97, 2; Tamil Nadu (VKR Meenakshi, Kavya G, Nikita Bhaiya, Anusha Mehta) 9:55.82, 3.
Water polo: Men: Kerala: 7 (Abhilash R 3, Asliraj A 1, Anish A 1, Shibinlal S 1, Pravin G U 1) bt Karnataka: 3 (Vishnu 2, Sandeep 1); West Bengal bt Manipur 6-0; Maharashtra bt Jharkhand 9-1.
Women: Police drew with Maharashtra 1-1; West Bengal bt Delhi 8-0; Kerala: 7 (Saranya Nair 3, Priyanka H S 2, Archa AA 2) bt Karnataka: 2 (Shwetha SS 1, Keerthana S 1).
Diving: Men: 3M springboard: Ramanand Sharma (Mah) 322.85, 1; T Hariprasad (RSPB) 318.50, 2; M Manesh Kumar (SSCB) 298.65, 3.
Women: 3M springboard: Hrutika Shriram (RSPB) 215.10, 1; Swati Vidap (Mah) 172.70, 2; Tanuka Dhara (WB) 172.20, 3.
