Swimmers shatter four Games records

Tapan Mohanta

Ranchi, Feb 14 (PTI) Swimmers smashed four meet recordsas Richa Mishra added two more gold medals on day two of thecompetition at the 34th National Games here today.

Sandeep Sejwal, A P Gagan, Richa and Karnataka''s 4x100mmen''s relay team set the four meet records as Karnataka andDelhi picked two gold and two silver each.

The day at the Veer Budhu Bhagat Aquatic Stadium in MegaSports Complex here belonged to 27-year-old Delhi girl Richawho bagged two more gold from as many events to make it fourin her total kitty.

Competing in all the 17 individual events, Richa had aconfident start in the day when she led all the way to clinchthe 800m freestyle with a record timing of 09.24:45s thusshattering the previous Games record held by Surabhi Tipre(09.25:30).

Maharashtra had a silver-bronze finish when AartiGhorpade (09.48:71) finished ahead of Rujuta Bhatt (09.51:17).

Richa swam 02.49:58 in 200m breaststroke en route to hersecond gold, while Poorva Shetye of Maharashtra (02.52:31) andTamil Nadu''s A V Jayaveena (02.53:09) took the silver andbronze respectively.

The Delhi girl was challenged by Poorva but shemaintained her lead in both the laps for her fourth gold.

Representing Madhya Pradesh, international swimmer Sejwalshattered the Games record by a big margin in the 200mbreaststroke.

Sejwal clocked 02.17:53 to better his previous record of02.26:80.

Puneet Rana of Haryana clinched the silver with a timingof 02.24:42 that itself was better than the previous meetrecord. Punjab clinched a bronze courtesy Jashandeep Singhwith a timing of 02.28:28.

Promising Karnataka youngster Gagan stunned nationalrecord holder Mandar Divase with a superlative performance inthe first event of the day when the 19-year-old showedtremendous grit and determination to claim the 1500m freestylegold with a record timing.

Gagan clocked 16.15:54 en route to the gold medal,bettering the four-year-old record in the name of RohitHavaldar (16.24:54). Divase of Maharashtra (16.41:07) andDelhi''s Merwyn Chen (16.50:24) settled for silver and bronzerespectively.

Himanshu Tiwari of Uttar Pradesh won high board divingwith 260.85 points while Keshav Shinde of Maharashtra (252.45)and Services'' Kartik Shaw (235.90) settled for silver andbronze respectively.

Karnataka quartet of Ashwin Menon, Aditya Roshan, ArjunJP and Rohit Havaldar set the fourth record of the day whenthey clocked 04.02:21 en route to gold in 4x100m medley relay.

Services (04.05:25) and Maharashtra (04.10:83) bagged thesilver and bronze respectively.

Maharashtra women''s team of Aarti Ghorpade, PoorvaShetye, Rujuta Bhatt and Aditi Dhumatkar clinched the 4x100mmedley relay in 04.43:09. Tamil Nadu (04.51:90) and Karnataka(04.59:06) won silver and bronze respectively.