Senior National Aquatic Championship: Sajan Prakash, Srihari Nataraj steal limelight on Day 3 by winning gold medals

Thiruvananthapuram: Sajan Prakash and Srihari Nataraj continued to rule the roost as the two swimmers set national records on day three of the 72nd Glenmark Senior National Aquatic Championship on Friday. [caption id=“attachment_2943324” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Sajan Prakash. Image courtesy: News18[/caption] Day three saw swimmers race for the top honours in nine categories including, seven individual and two team events with three national records being obliterated. In the men’s 400m freestyle event, Sajan blitzed his way to the gold setting a national record by clocking a time of 3:54.93 seconds. Although the 25-year-old started off slowly trailing behind Saurabh Sangvekar, he took the lead by the end of the third lap. Delhi’s Kushagra Rawat and Aryan Makhijia won the silver and bronze medals respectively. The Kerala lad also took the top honours in the 100m butterfly event. Sajan clocked 53.46 seconds bettering his own meet record of 53.83 seconds set last year in Bhopal. Like Thursday, Srihari continued to break his own national records. He grabbed the top spot in the men’s 200m backstroke event. There was hardly any competition for him as the 17-year-old zoomed ahead of all the other participants clocking a time of 2:02.37 seconds. T Sethu Manickavel of Tamil Nadu finished second with a time of 2:06.21 seconds. The quartet of Neel Roy, Sadhvi Dhuri, Kenisha Gupta and Virdhawal Khade representing Swimming Federation of India set the last record of the day in the 4x50m mixed event. It was a tough competition with Railways breathing down SFI’s neck but the latter managed to grab the gold finishing with a timing 1:40.00 seconds. At the end of day three, Karnataka leads overall with 18 medals including six gold, seven silver and five bronze with SFI (14 medals) and Kerala ( four medals) in second and third place respectively. Results: Men: 400m freestyle: 1. Sajan Prakash (Kerala) (3:54.93 NR), 2. Kushagra Rawat (Delhi) (3:58.40), 3. Aryan Makhijia (Delhi) (4:01.10) 200m backstroke: 1. Srihari Nataraj (Karnataka) (2:02.37), 2. T. Sethu Manickavel (TN) (2:06.21), 3. K Abbasuddin (TN) (2:09.36). 100m butterfly: 1. Sajan Prakash (53.46 NR), 2. Supriya Mondal (Railways) (54.70), 3. Mihir Amre (SFI) (55.89). Women: 50m freestyle: 1.Kenisha Gupta (SFI) (26.92), 2. Deeksha Ramesh (Karnataka) (27.12), 3. Avantika Chavan (Karnataka) (27.23). 1500m freestyle: 1. Richa Mishra (Police) (17:41.16), 2. Bhavika Dugar (TN) (17:58.31), 3. Kushi Dinesh (TN) (18:03.18). 200m backstroke: 1. Maana Patel (Gujarat) (2:20.42), 2. Suvana C.Baskar (Karnataka) (2:25.01), 3. Soubrity Mondal (Bengal) (2:27.60). 100m butterfly: 1. Trisha Karkhanis (SFI) (1:03.62), 2. Divya Satija (Haryana) (1:04.39), 3.Damini K.Gowda (1:05.36). Mixed: 4x50m mixed relay: 1. SFI (1:40.00 - NR), 2. Railways (1:40.70), 3. Karnataka (1:42.47). 4X200m freestyle: 1. Karnataka (9:05.55), 2. Tamil Nadu (9:13.67), 3. SFI (9:15.67).