Veerdhawal Khade won the 100m freestyle gold at the 66th Enerzal senior National aquatics championships on Friday, his timing of 50:53 — a new meet record — falling within the 2013 World Championship ‘B’ standard time (50:64).
The Kolhapur-based freestyle ace, representing Maharashtra at this event, also emerged ‘best swimmer’ in men’s category.
Khade was followed home by Aaron D’Souza.
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Saurabh Sangwekar (15:55.81 seconds) won the 1,500m freestyle gold, leaving challenger and London Olympian A.P. Gagan (16:09.25) a distant second.
Goa’s Talasha Prabhu bagged the women’s 100m freestyle, adding to the 50m freestyle gold she had won earlier.
Priyanka Priyadarshini came up with a new meet mark in the women’s 100m breaststroke (1:16.76 seconds) to remain in contention for a place among the national probables for the Asian Championships.
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Her time was an improvement over M. Raghavi’s national championship time 1:18.55, though her time is far behind World Championship ‘B’ standard of 1:11.03.
Richa Mishra walked away with the title of best swimmer among women, with her haul of five golds won over four days.
Karnataka won the mean’s team championship, while Maharashtra was best in the women’s competition.
Services and Kerala won the water polo gold in the men’s and women’s sections respectively.
In the diving competition, Services and Railways finished on top.
The results: Men: 100m freestyle: 1. Veerdhawal Khade (Mah) 50:53 (NMR), 2. Aaron D’Souza (Kar) 51:26, 3. Anshul Kothari (Guj) 53:30. Prev mark: 51:15. 100m breaststroke: 1. Sandeep Sejwal (RSPB) 1:03:10, 2. Puneet Rana (Pol) 1:05:07, 3. Anoop Augustine (RSPB) 1:06:24. 200m butterfly: 1. Aaron D’Souza (Kar) 2:01:47, 2. Sajan Prakash (RSPB) 2:03:79, 3. Vishnu K M (SSCB) 2:07:65.