Arvind, Damini sparkle

Seasoned campaigners Arvind Mani and Damini K Gowda put up splendid performances to put Karnataka’s campaign back on track at the 70th Glenmark Senior National Aquatic Championships here at the Veer Budhu Bhagat Aquatic Stadium on Monday.

Arvind was a class apart in the 200M backstroke to clinch the gold in record time while Damini timed her race to perfection to pocket the 100M butterfly gold on a day that saw four new national marks being set.

Arvind had no problems in negating a slow start as he rallied from a slender deficit to touch the pad in a new national record time of 2:05.46. The Basavangudi Aquatic Centre trainee obliterated the previous best of 2:06.23 set by Maharashtra’s Rohit Havaldar in 2013.

After Arvind’s exploits, his club-mate Damini ensured that there were no hiccups in the State’s challenge for supremacy as she won the 100M butterfly in fine manner.

Though Maharashtra’s Trisha Karkhanis tried her best to overpower the Karnataka swimmer, she couldn’t hold on for long as Damini stamped her mark on the race with a winning time of 1:04.31. An exhausted Trisha had to settle for the bronze in 1:05.60 as another Karnataka swimmer Mayuri Lingraj took the silver in 1:05.18.
Later in the day, the two Indians who had participated at the recently concluded Rio Olympics — Sajan Prakash and Shivani Kataria — showed their class with record-breaking feats in their respective events.

A day after he had set a new national mark in 200M butterfly, Sajan, representing the Railways, found the going easy in the 100M butterfly. Without much trouble, the Kerala-born swimmer won the yellow metal in 54.43 seconds, fractions better than the previous best of 54.59 seconds set by Veerdhawal Khade of Maharashtra in 2015.

Shivani, meanwhile, was in a league of her own as she won the 200M freestyle in a commanding manner. Having raced the same segment at the Rio Games, there was no doubt who was the favourite going into the race.

And the Haryana swimmer proved her worth by winning the gold in a new national record time of 2:06.97. She was ahead of Richa Mishra’s previous best of 2:07.29, set in 2011.

Swimmers from Gujarat too had their say in the day’s proceedings as their team set a new record in the 4x50M mixed medley relay, an event which was included in the Senior Nationals only last year.

The quartet of Maana Patel, Smith Sharma, Dilpreet Kaur and Anshul Kothari won the gold in 1:53.43, overshadowing the previous best of 1:54.13 set by Maharashtra at the Rajkot meet last year.