Double delight for Maana

In a sport dominated by Karnataka and Maharashtra, she has been Gujarat’s only hope in recent times. At the 42nd Junior and 32nd Sub-Junior Aquatics Championships, it was no different as the 15-year-old Maana Patel once again proved her quality to bag two gold medals here on day three of the meet.

With hosts Maharashtra winning six gold medals to catch up with Karnataka — who have 22 gold, 17 sliver and 17 bronze — the focus was firmly on the Gujarat girl as medals for eight sprint events were decided on Wednesday.

At the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex here, the Karnataka swimmers started well by winning the Group I and II boys’ 4x200M freestyle relay but their sprinters couldn’t live up to their billing in the individual races. Sanjay CJ was the only bright spot for the State side winning the Group II, 50M freestyle.

In the girls section, Maana was the talk of the day as she first romped to the gold in Group I, 100M backstroke in record-breaking time. She later kept her focus to clinch the gold in a tense 50M freestyle final.

In the backstroke final, there was no stopping the Ahmedabad swimmer as she touched the pad in 1:05.00, overhauling the previous best of 1:07.04, set by Karnataka’s Damini Gowda at the Bhopal meet in 2014. Tamil Nadu’s Nivya Raja won the silver in 1:08.56, while K Harishree Rai of Karnataka settled for bronze in 1:09.00.

The 50M freestyle was not an easy task for Maana. In a race that featured a few of the top swimmers in the age group, the Gujarat girl won the gold with a slender margin of 0.3 seconds. Maana clocked 27.75 for the gold while Tamil Nadu sprinter Jayaveena AV had to settle for silver in 27.78. Karntaka’s Deeksha Ramesh completed the podium in 28.12.

Results: Boys: Group I: 50M freestyle: Viraj Prabhu (Mah) 24.47, 1; Mukundhan P (Tamil Nadu) 24.51, 2; Ishaan Mehra (Mah) 4.89, 3.

100M backstroke: Vedant Seth (Del) (59.87, NR; Old: 1:00.16, Arvind M, Kar, 2013) 1; Shwejal Mankar (Mah) 1:02.43, 2; Arsh Khan (Del) 1:03.31, 3.

400M individual medley: Jason Smith (Mah) 4:46.48, 1; Deepanshu Dahiya (Del) 4:51.03, 2; Shivakash Sahu (Chhatisgarh) 4:53.17, 3.

4x200M freestyle relay: Karnataka (8:07.68, NR; Old: 8:09.93, Kar, 2014) 1; Maharashtra 8:15.32, 2; Delhi 8:20.35, 3.

Group II: 50M freestyle: Sanjay CJ (Kar) 25.51, 1; Shiven Brahambhatt (Guj) 25.94, 2; Bastab Tapan B (Assam) 26.03, 3.

400M individual medley: Neel Roy (Mah) 4:50.28, 1; Sanskar Tokas (Del) 5:19.85, 2; Advit Page (MP) 5:08.82, 3.

100M backstroke: N Sri Hari (Kar) (1:02.70, NR; Old: 1:04.45, S Siva, Kar, 2014) 1; Xavier D’Souza (Goa) 1:02.97, 2; Soumyajit Saha (Bengal) 1:06.81, 3.

4x200M freestyle relay: Karnataka: 8:41.13, 1; Maharashtra 8:41.56, 2; Assam 9:01.84, 3.

Group III: 100M backstroke: Tanmay Das (Del) (1:09.00, NR; Old: 1:09.91, Bhavesh R, Kar, 2014) 1; Aaryan Bhosale (Mah) 1:10.95, 2; Vedant Bapana (Mah) 1:11.07, 3.

Group IV: 50M freestyle: Abhigyan Dutta (Assam) 28.17, 1; Sagolshem Hiren (Manipur) 28.18, 2; Prasidha Krishna (Kar) 28.19, 3.

50M butterfly: Anvesh Prasade (Mah) (32.11, NR; 32.84, Bikram Changmai, Assam, 2014) 1; Shoan Ganguly (Kar) 32.59, 2; Utkarsh S Patil (Kar) 33.67, 3.

Girls: Group I: 50M freestyle: Maana Patel (Guj) 27.75, 1; Jayaveena AV (Tamil Nadu) 27.78, 2; Deeksha Ramesh (Kar) 28.12, 3.

100M backstroke: Manna Patel (Guj) (1:05.00, NR; Old: 1:07.04, Damini Gowda, Kar, 2014) 1; Nivya Raja (Tamil Nadu) 1:11.88, 2; K Harishree Rai (Kar) 1:09.00.

400M individual medley: Sayani Ghosh (Bengal) 5:16.70, 1; Shraddha Sudhir (Kar) 5:19.85, 2; Rhia Singh (Kar) 5:27.86, 3.

Group II: 50M freestyle: Annie Jain (MP) 28.96, 1; Sunaina Manjunath (Kar) 29.36, 2; Megha Bali (Del) 29.50, 3.

1500M freestyle: Rayan Saldanha (Mah) 18:05.72, 1; Bhavika Dugar (Tamil Nadu) 19:18.23, 2; Nandini SS (Kar) 19:28.48, 3.

100M backstroke: Soubrity Mondal (Bengal) 1:11.68, 1; Jaahnavi Hiren (Tamil Nadu) 1:11.88, 2; Tejaswita Bharadwaj (Mah) 1:12.64, 3.

Group III: 50M freestyle: Kenisha Gupta (Mah) 29.63, 1; Smruthi Mahalingam (Kar) 30.56, 2; Pugazharasu Priyanga (Tamil Nadu) 30.65, 3.

100M backstroke: Suvana C Baskar (Kar) 1:13.84, 1; Niyati Shah (Kar) 1:14.68, 2; Tanisha Malviya (Del) 1:15.76, 3.

Group IV: 50M butterfly: Mugilavanika K (Tamil Nadu) 34.19, 1; Jedidah A (Kar) 34.39, 2; Palak Dhami (Mah) 34.85, 3.

Diving: Boys: Group I: 1mt spring board: Sandip Das (SSCB) 458.10, 1; Ramananda Sharma (SSCB) 421.20, 2; Heman L Singh (Kar) 355, 3.

Group II: Platform: Daksh Bajpai (SSCB) 285.25, 1; Joydeep Nayak (SSCB) 262.35, 2; Nihal Girma (Mah) 249.65, 3.

Girls: Group I: 1 mt spring board: Simran Rajani (Mah) 264.15, 1; Bhavika Pingle (MP) 225.65, 2; Aysha (Del) 203.95, 3.

Group II: Platform: Sweta Dey (Bengal) 185.70, 1; Aishwarya Bhosale (Mah) 172.05, 2; Sarika Vidap (Mah) 168.35, 3.

Watterpolo: Boys: Mahrashtra: 12 (Bhagesh Kuthe 2; Sarang Vaidya 5; Hardik Tadkar 1; Shivam Gadge 1; Yash Gajinkar 1; Pranav Mhatre 1; Vaibhav Kuthe 1) bt Manipur: 2 (Alex Singh 2); Bengal: 10 (Ankit Shukla 1; Kumarjit Dutta 3; Avjit Biswas 1; Kartik Das 3; Tamal Mistry 2) bt Delhi: 0.