Senior National Aquatic Championship: Srihari Nataraj breaks national record twice to win men's 50m backstroke gold

Thiruvananthapuram: Teen sensation Srihari Nataraj obliterated his own national record twice to win gold medal in the men’s 50m backstroke category on day two of the 72nd Glenmark Senior National Aquatic Championship at Dr BR Ambedkar International Aquatic Complex on Thursday. [caption id=“attachment_5208381” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Srihari Nataraj. Image Courtesy: Twitter @srihari3529[/caption] Day 2 witnessed the continuation of the participants passion for swimming as five national records were broken again across nine categories, including seven individual and two team events. Karnataka lad, Srihari, created a national record by finishing with a timing of 26:55 seconds in the heats. In the final race, the 17-year-old bettered his heats timing clocking 26.18 seconds to clinch the gold. Madhu PS and Vedant Seth finished second and third respectively. In the men’s 50m freestyle, 2010 Asian Games bronze medallist, Virdhawal Khade grabbed the gold while Aaron D’Souza and Neel Roy finished second and third respectively. In the men’s 1500m freestyle event, Advait Page of Madhya Pradesh created a national record by finishing with a timing of 15:42.67 seconds. The earlier record of 15:45.83s was set by Sajan Prakash four years ago. Aryan Makhija, representing SFI, clinched the silver medal while the bronze went to Delhi’s Kushagra Rawat. Delhi’s Sandeep Sejwal won the top honors in the 200m men’s breaststroke event. The 2014 Asian Games bronze medallist hardly broke a sweat clocking a time of 2:15.76 second. S Dhanush of Tamil Nadu, who finished second, clocked 2:19.32s. In the women’s 4x100 medley SFI’s team comprising Yuga Birnale, Trisha Karkhanis, Kareena Shankta and Kenisha Gupta set a national record while finishing with a timing of 4:29.81 seconds. In the men’s 4x100m medley the quartet of Srihari, Likith SP, Avinash Mani and Rahul M grabbed the gold. Teams from SSCB and Delhi won the silver and bronze medals respectively. In the women’s 200m breaststroke event, Saloni Dalal of Karnataka, who won gold in 50m breaststroke event on Wednesday, smashed the national record clocking 2:41.88 seconds. While Police’s Richa Mishra bettered her own national record, set here in 2009, to claim the gold in the women’s 400m medley category.