Richa Mishra of Police continued to dominate the ongoing 65th National aquatics meet at the Veer Budhu Bhagat Stadium here on Friday. The CRPF inspector achieved an Indian best mark for the second time in three days and picked up her fourth gold medal, highest so far by an individual in this championship.
In improving her own National best and meet record of 4:28.97s set in 2009, Richa clocked 4:25.76s thus making a mockery of the combined challenges put up by Karnataka and Maharashtra, not only in this event but in all the other three she won earlier.
“I am extremely happy to improve my own timings. I am setting higher targets and one of them is making it to the London Olympics either in 200 and 400m individual medley. I am working hard and hope to achieve the qualifying standards during the run-up to the Games,'' an elated Richa said.
Aaron Angel D'souza won two golds, one with a new meet record in the 50m backstroke event.
He was timed 27.23s which bettered M.B. Balakrishnan of Tamil Nadu's time of 27.46s set at Jaipur last year. Earlier he won the 100m butterfly in 56.02s pushing two Muralidharans, Amar and Arjun, to minor placings. This was his third gold of the meet.
Significantly, D'souza on Thursday clocked 1:51.38s in the men's 200m freestyle which was well within the London Olympic invitation qualifying time of 1:51.59s. Since this meet is not FINA approved qualifying meet, his time would not be considered. But then the good news is that the lad has it in him to achieve it again in an approved meet in future.
In taking his second gold medal of the meet, Saurabh Sangvekar broke the 400m freestyle record of Mandar Divase of Police by timing 4:01.35s. The previous record stood at 4:02.20.
The 4 x 200m freestyle relay quartet of Karnataka improved the existing record of 8:02.56s with 7:58.36s. The gold medal winning members were Sangvekar, Rehan Poncha, Rohit Havaldar and D'souza.
Tamil Nadu's Sherlyn Meghna Devadasan took silver in women's 50m backstroke in a time of 32.23s. Fariha Zaman of Karnataka won gold in 32.13. Sherlyn and Jayaveena's success in this meet underlines that the junior development programme in that State is paying rich dividend.
Like the highboard event, Hrutika Shriram of Railways also won the women's 3m springboard title for the seventh time.
Karnataka ruled the pool by scooping up 13 gold, eight silver and five bronze medals. Police overtook Railways to the second spot with a haul of 4-4-2 and Railways was third with 4-3-3. TN was fourth with 2-2-3. Maharashtra was a disappointing fifth with 1-6-6.
The results:
Men: 400m freestyle: 1. Saurabh Sangvekar (Kar) 4:01.35s ( NMR , old 4:02.20s by Mandar Divase of Police, 2009), 2. Mandar Divase (Pol) 4:05.34, 3. Sujay Shah (Guj) 4:09.55; 50m backstroke: 1. Aaron D'souza (Kar) 27.23s ( NMR , old 27.46s by M.B. Balakrishnan of TN, 2010), 2. Rohit Havaldar (Kar) 27.84, 3. Sunil Kumar (Ser) 28.09.
100m butterfly: 1. Aaron D'souza (Kar) 56.02s, 2. Amar Muralidharan (Mah) 57.08, 3. Arjun Muralidharan (Pol) 57.49; 4 x 200m freestyle relay: 1. Karnataka 7:58.36s ( NMR , old 8:02.56s by Karnataka, 2010), 2. Railways 8:19.75, 3. Services 8:23.45.
3m springboard: 1. Ramanand Sharma (Mah) 322.85 points), 2. T. Hariprasad (Rly) 318.50, 3. M. Manesh Kumar (Ser) 298.65.
Women: 400m freestyle: 1. Richa Mishra (Pol) 4:25.76s ( NR , old 4:28.97s by Richa , 2009), 2. Surabhi Tipre (Kar) 4:29.22, 3. Kshipra Mahajan (Kar) 4:38.93; 50m backstroke: 1. Fariha Zaman (Kar) 32.13s, 2. Sherlyn Meghna Devadasan (TN) 32.23, 3. Ananya Panigrahi (Mah) 32.64.
100m butterfly: 1. Pooja R. Alva (Kar) 1:04.20s, 2. Aditi Dhumatkar (Mah) 1:05.93, 3. Rujuta Bhatt (Mah) 1:07.36.
4 x 200m freestyle relay: 1. Karnataka 9:04.80s, 2. Maharashtra 9:14.97, 3. Tamil Nadu 9:55.82.
3m springboard: 1. Hrutika Shriram (Rly) 215.10 points, 2. Swati Vidap (Mah) 172.70, 3. Tanuka Dhara (Ben) 172.20.
