For the last three days, he watched youngsters hog the limelight but on the penultimate day, Virdhawal Khade made a cameo appearance and left his indelible mark in the Glenmark 72nd National swimming championship at the B.R. Ambedkar Aquatic complex here on Saturday.
Virdhawal signed off from the meet in style by setting a new meet record in 50m butterfly. He led from start-to-finish and won the race in 24.26 seconds.
The 27-year-old Virdhawal, in the process, broke his own nine-year-old record (24.36) and also met the B-standards qualifying norms for the world meet. Virdhawal’s traditional rivals Supriya Mondal and Sarma S.P. Nair finished second and third respectively.
Rising star Saloni Dalal underlined her growing stature by setting a new national record and the best Indian performance in 100m breaststroke event.
From the start it was a two horse race between Saloni and Kareena Shankta. Kareena gave Saloni a run for her money with the latter narrowly managing to ward off the challenge at the finish.
It was the third gold and second record for Saloni who clocked 1:14.87s to break Chahat Arora’s old mark and the previous best Indian performance of 1:15.19 set last year.
Advait Page narrowly failed to break the existing mark in 400m medley race. Adavit trailed initially but hit the front in the backstroke leg.
He consolidated the lead in the butterfly and threatened to sink the record with a blistering freestyle leg. However, he missed the record narrowly finishing in 4:30.92 seconds.
Richa Mishra of Police powered her way to her fourth individual medal gold by winning the women’s 800m freestyle event in 9.14.22s. Again, Richa swam alone, finishing nearly 25 metres ahead of her rivals. Bhavika Dugar pipped Khushi Dinesh to take the silver medal.
The day’s other impressive winners were Kenisha Gupta, who narrowly missed the national mark in 100m freestyle, and the promising 15-year-old Neel Roy who won the 100m freestyle ahead of Srihari Nataraj.
The results: Men: 100m freestyle: 1. Neel Roy (SFI) 51.45, 2. Srihari Nataraj (Kar) 51.34, 3. Anshul Kothari (Guj) 52.22.
400m medley: 1. Advait Page (MP) 4:30.92, 2. T. Emil R. Robin Singh (TN) 4:37.14, 3. Sanu Debnath (Rlys) 4:39.71.
100m breaststroke: 1. Sandeep Sejwal (Del) 1:02.60, 2. S.P. Likith (Kar) 1:03.09, 3. Puneet Rana 1:04.14.
50m butterfly: 1. Virdhawal Khade (SFI) 24.26; NR; OR - 24.36, Virdhawal Khade (Mah), 2009, 2. Supriya Mondal (Rlys) 24.86, 3. Sarma S.P. Nair (Rlys) 25.19.
4x200m freestyle relay: 1. Karnataka 7:48.05, 2. SFI 7:51.29, 3. Railways 7:52.75.
Women: 100m freestyle: 1. Kenisha Gupta (SFI) 58.75, 2. Shivani Kataria (Har) 58.77, 3. Aditi Dhumatkar 59.13.
800m freestyle: 1. Richa Mishra (Police) 9:14.22, 2. Bhavika Dugar (TN) 9:22.57, 3. Khushi Dinesh (Kar) 9:22.62.
100m breaststroke: 1. Saloni Dalal (Kar) 1:14.87; NR; OR - 1:15.19 - Chahat Arora (Pun), 2017, 2. Kareena Shankta (SFI) 1:15.24, 3. Annie Jain (MP) 1;17.70.
50m butterfly: 1. Divya Satija (Har) 28.72, 2. Kenisha Gupta (SFI) 28.94, 3. Liyana Fathima Umer (Ker) 29.00.
