Karnataka relay team swims to new record in Nat'l Aquatics

Aron D'Souza and Surabhi Tipre too grabbed the limelight by winning gold medals in the finals of the four events held in the morning session. Both Aron and Surabhi won their 400 meter freestyle events and were then part of the their relay teams to bag the gold.

The Karnataka relay team comprising Rehan Poncha, Rohit Havaldar, Gagan A P and Aron D'Souza clocked 8:2.56 to better the old mark of 8:3.25 also set by Karnataka in 2007. Railways grabbed the silver with 8:23.01 and Maharashtra finished third with a timing of 8:33.78 sec. In 4x200 meter womens relay, Maharashtra clinched the top spot with 9:11.52 with a fine effort from Surabhi Tipre, Arti Ghorpade, Aditi Ghumatkar and Kanchi Desai.

Karnataka and Tamil Nadu bagged silver and Bronze with timing of 9:40.40 and 9:44.23 respectively. The heavy rains previous evening compelled the organisers to decide the winners of the 400 meters Freestyle on time trial basis instead of conducting the heats. The gold in this event was bagged by Aron D'Souza, who clocked 4:07.11 while Gagan (Karnataka) had to be satisfied with the second place with a timing of 4:08.65 and Mandar A Divase (Police) settled for Bronze with a timing of 4:09.36 Sec.

In the women's section, Surabhi (Maharashtra) beat the fancied Richa Mishra (Police) to bag the top spot with 4:30.24. Richa settled for the second spot with a timing of 4:40.45 sec. while the third place went to Pratibha Kolali who clocked 4:47.40.in the water polo matches, Railways thrashed Police 10-4, while in other matches Kerala beat Manipur 9-2 and Maharashtra defeated SSCB 14-9. In the women's section, Maharashtra drew with Karnataka 4-4, Kerala beat Police 9-3, and Bengal defeated Manipur 4-0.