City swimmer shines at nat’ls, wins 6 medals

Thane: Thane’s top swimmer Saurabh Sangvekar (20) won four individual and two relay medals in swimming at the 35th National Games held at Trivandrum. As part of the Maharashtra men’s relay team, Sangvekar, along with Olympian Veerdhaval Khade, Rohit Havaldar and Ishan Zaffar, clinched a gold in 4x200m freestyle relay, with an elapsed time of 7 minutes, 44 seconds and 24 microseconds. “It was good to win so many medals.But my only regret is that I missed the gold in individual events by a whisker,” said Sangvekar, who made his Asian Games debut at Incheon, South Korea last year.
In the 4x100m freestyle relay, the state team won a silver with the finishing time of 3 minutes, 33 seconds and 30 microseconds. The team included Sangvekar, Viraj Prabhu, Havaldar and Khade.
His individual silver medals came in 400m (3.59:70), 800m (8.22:09) and 1,500m (16.07:13) freestyle heats. Sangvekar finished with a bronze in the 200m freestyle event with 1 minute 54 seconds and 58 microseconds.