India’s new wonder girl of swimming, Maana Patel of Gujarat, bettered her own mark in the women’s 100m backstroke at the 68th senior National aquatic championship on Wednesday.
The opening day saw two more records in the men’s section with Saurabh Sangvekar of Maharashtra and Services’ P.S. Madhu eclipsing the previous bests while winning the 400m freestyle and 100m backstroke events respectively.
The 14-year-old Maana maintained the sequence of creating records that she had started in the senior nationals at Thiruvananthapuram last year. Manaa cut short her previous best of 1:06.58 (set in 2013) by recording 1:05.47 in the 100m backstroke heats. She won the final but could not better the timing set in the morning.
“I felt a lot energised in the heats and also enjoyed a nice rhythm to get that timing in the heats. I could not warn up properly ahead of the final and that seemed to upset the tempo,” said Maana, who has won five gold medals in the junior Nationals with a record in each effort.
Brilliant effortSaurabh’s outstanding performance in the first event of the day — where he beat the defending champion Sajan Prakash of Railways to win the men’s 400m freestyle with a record timing — lit up the proceedings.
Saurabh made a perfect start and led all along to win in 3:56.17 seconds, erasing the record of 3:58.51 set by Sajan in the previous Nationals. “I had timed 3.59 in the Incheon Asian Games. Since then I am targeting 3.54 and am happy to reach nearer to it today,” said Saurabh.
Madhu peaked at the right moment as clocked a record-breaking 57.95 seconds to beat back the challenges of M. Arvind of Karnataka and Rohit Havaldar of Maharashtra, who had the top two positions in the heats.
The results (finals):
Men’s: 400m freestyle: 1. Saurabh Sangvekar (Mah) 3:56.17s (NR, Old 3:58.51 by Sajan Prakash (RSPB), 2013), 2. Sajan Prakash (RSPB) 3:56.78, 3. Anand A.S. (Ker) 4:07.95. 200m breaststroke: 1. Sandeep Sejwal (RSPB) 2:16.10, 2. Anoop Augastin (RSPB) 2:19.22, 3. S.P. Lakshit (Kar) 2:22.82. 100m butterfly: 1. Aaron D’Souza (RSPB) 55.81, 2. Sharma S.P. Nair (RSPB) 56.57, Supriya Mondal (Ben) 56.64. 100m backstroke: P.S. Madhu (SSCB) 57.95 (NR, Old 58.30 by M.B. Balakrishnan (TN), 2010), 2. M. Arvind (Kar) 59.02, 3. Rohit Imoliya (MP) 59.75. 4x200m freestyle: 1. RSPB 7:56.30, 2. Gujarat 7:56.62, 3. SSCB 8:03.27.
Women’s: 400m freestyle: 1. Monique Gandhi (Mah) 4:27.86, 2. V. Malvika (Kar) 4:30.21, Richa Mishra (Police) 4:32.73. 200m breaststroke: 1. Harleen Kaur (Pun) 2:47.91, 2. Rutuja Udeshi (Mah) 2:49.95, 3. Poorva Shetty (Mah) 2:51.92. 100m butterfly: 1. Jyotsana Pansare (Mah) 1:04.58, 2. Damini K. Gowda (Kar) 1:05.61, V.K.R. Meenakshi (TN) 1:05.78. 100m backstroke: 1. Maana Patel (Guj) 1:05.90, 2. Damini K. Gowda (Kar) 1:07.93, 3. Vania Kapoor Achutan (Kar) 1:08.60. 4x200m freestyle: 1. Maharashtra 9:07.06, 2. Karnataka 9:12.42, 3. Kerala 9:26.07.
