Sajan Prakash sets two of five national records broken on first day of 72nd Senior National Aquatic Championships

Thiruvananthapuram: Five national records were broken, including two by Kerala swimmer Sajan Prakash, on the opening day of the 72nd Senior National Aquatic Championships on Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_5218981” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Sajan Prakash. Reuters[/caption] The five-day meet, being held at the Ambedkar International Aquatic center, saw eight events including six individual events and two relays on day one. In the men’s 200 m freestyle, Sajan broke a nine-year-old record, clocking 1:50.35 seconds to claim the top spot. The earlier record of 1:51:38 was set by Aaron D’Souza in 2011. Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka grabbed the silver medal and the bronze went to Aaryan Makhija, representing Swimming Federation of India (SFI). In the men’s 200m medley, Sajan again stamped his authority by taking the top spot and creating a national record of 2:05.83s. RSPB’s Sanu Debnath and Supriya Mondal bagged the silver and bronze medals respectively. In the women’s 200m freestyle event, Shivani Kataria of Haryana bettered her own national record by clocking a time of 2:05.86 seconds to claim the gold. Karnataka’s Khushi Dinesh bagged the silver medal and Prachi Tokas of Delhi got the bronze. In the men’s 50m breaststroke, Delhi’s Sandeep Sejwal created a national record with a timing of 27.89 seconds in the heats. He was unable to replicate his heats performance but still managed to clinch the gold by clocking 28.39 seconds in the final. Likith SP of Karnataka came second, followed by Police’s Puneet Rana. In the women’s 50m breaststroke event, Saloni Dalal of Karnataka won the gold, finishing with a time 34.56 seconds followed by AV Jayaveena of Tamil Nadu, who had earlier created a national record in the heats by clocking 33.81s. Annie Jain from Madhya Pradesh came third. Police’s Richa Mishra won the women’s 200m medley with SFI’s Kenisha Gupta and Bengal’s Sayani Ghosh finishing second and third respectively. In the men’s 4x100m freestyle event, the quartet of Aaron D’Souza, Sanu Debnath, Sarma Nair and Saurabh Sangvekar claimed the gold. SFI’s Kenisha Gupta, Yuga Birnale, Sadhvi Dhuri and Trisha Karkhanis won the gold in the women’s 4x100m freestyle.