JOIN USRohit hogs limelight; dull start for Poncha
The national champion not only failed to qualify for the Commonwealth Games but also suffered a shocking defeat against team-mate Rohit R Havaldar on the opening day of the 64th Senior National Aquatics Championship here on Tuesday.
It was a dull day of proceedings at the Sawai Mansingh swimming pool as none of the swimmers attained the qualifying timing for the October 3-14 mega event. Poncha, who was expected to make the CWG grade in the 200 backstroke, will now have 200 freestyle and 100 backstroke to get the qualifying mark for the Delhi Games.
“It was a disappointing race. A totally disappointing day,” an upset Poncha said after the race. Rohit clocked two minutes 08.92 seconds ahead of Poncha, who took silver in 2:09.22.
Rohit had already qualified in this event for CWG at the Federation Cup in Delhi last month where he timed 2:08.41. The 21-year-old Rohit, who celebrates his 22nd birthday on Thursday, reasoned hot and the humid conditions for not coming up with good timing.
‘Never expected’
“I just focused on swimming fast and I never thought I could beat Poncha. It is much hotter here than in Bangalore so the timing wasn’t better,” an elated Rohit said.
Rehan took an early lead and touched the 50-metre mark just a second ahead of Rohit. But things slowly began to change after 100 metres as Rohit slowly began to catch-up with Rehan. Rohit took half-a-body-length margin towards the final 25-metres and then held on to it.
Karnataka won two more gold with Gagan A P (men’s 800M freestyle) and women’s 4x100M medley relay team finishing on top on the day. The day, however, belonged to Sandeep Sejwal and RSPB men’s 4x100 medley relay team who bettered the national records. Sejwal broke his own meet mark in the 200 breaststroke.
Results: Men: 800M freestyle: Gagan A P (Kar) 8:28.17 seconds, 1; Mander A Divase (Police) 8:33.51, 2; Merwyn Chen (RSPB), 8:48.24, 3. 200M backstroke: Rohit R Havaldar (Kar) 2:08.92, 1; Rehan Poncha (Kar) 2:09.22, 2; Praveen Tokas (RSPB) 2:10.04, 3.
200M breaststroke: Sandeep Sejwal (RSPB) 2:17.92. New meet record (Old: 2:18.85, Delhi, 2009) 1; Puneet Rana (Har) 2:21.06, 2; Anoop Augustine (RSPB) 2:26.53, 3.
50M butterfly: Veerdhawal Khade (Mah) 25.03, 1; Arjun Muralidharan (Police) and Aditya Roshan (Kar) 26.39, 2.
4x100M medley relay: RSPB (Praveen Tokas, Sandeep Sejwal, Tarun Tokas, Arjun J P) 3:56.98. New meet record (Old: 4:00.55, Karnataka, 2009) 1; Karnataka (Rohit R Havaldar, Aditya Roshan, Rehan Poncha, Aaron D’Souza) 4:04.58, 2; Police (Ishwar Sharma, Rohit Kumar, Vinay Krishna, Arjun Muralidharan) 4:08.98, 3.
Women: 200M breaststroke: M Raghavi (TN) 2:49.32,1; Poorva Shetye (Mah) 2:50.68, 2; Priyanka Priyadarshini (Dli) 2:51.29, 3.
200M backstroke: Ananya Panigrahi (Mah) 2:28.29, 1; Fariha Zaman (Kar), 2:33.75, 2; Heta Davey (MP) 2:34.42, 3.
50M butterfly: Jyotsna Pansare (Mah) 29.35, 1; Talasha Prabhu (Goa) 29.59, 2; Shubha C (Kar) 29.79, 3.
4x100 medley relay: Karnataka (Fariha Zaman, Tejaswini V, Pooja R Alva, Shubha C) 4:41.44, 1; Maharashtra (Kavya B, Gauri Desai, Rujuta Bhatt, Aditi D) 4:42.27, 2; Tamil Nadu (C Aishwarya, M Raghavi, Sherlyn Meghana, Anusha M) 4:56.38, 3.
Water polo: Men: Karnataka: 11 (Prasad G K 3, Vipin B C 2, Jayaram A 2, Madanlal M L 2, Sreelal S S 1, Ankush M V 1) bt Delhi: 2 (Santanu Tokas 1, Hitesh K 1); Police: 10 (S L Gopakumar 4, N Gopakumar 3, Ratnesh S 2, Kehar Singh 1) bt Punjab: 4 (Rohit Sharma 2, Charanpreet Singh 1, Samarjit Singh 1); Maharashtra: 8 (Arjun Kawle 4, Akshay Kunde 2, Maz Khan 1, Pratik Ajmer 1) bt Manipur: 1 (P S Meitei); Bengal: 2 (Prasanjit Ball 1, Aditya Das 1) bt SSCB: 1 (S Deva Kumar 1).
Women: Karnataka: 5 (Shruthi M S 2, Uttara K 1, Malvika Gubbi 1, Renu R T 1) bt Delhi: 0; Kerala: 8 (B G Varghese 3, Priyanka M S 2, Nithya 1, Pranthika 1, Archa 1) bt Bengal: 1 (Sharmishta 1); Police: 8 (Biji Devi 3, Purnima P 2, Preeti 2, Nayan 1) bt Manipur: 0.
Diving: Men: High board: Puskar Meitei (Jhd) 276.15, 1; Himanshu Tiwari (UP) 262.65, 2; Naveen Yadav (RSPB) 262.30, 3.
Women: High board: Hrutika Shriram (RSPB) 214.65, 2; Deepti P (Dli) 179.75, 2; Jagruti S (Mah) 150.15, 3.