Sport - Sports : General

Rehan, Shikha rewrite National records

Karnataka's Rehan Poncha, who set a new mark in the boys' Group I 200m butterfly event in the Junior National aquatic championship in Chennai on Saturday.

CHENNAI JUNE 22. Karnataka's Rehan Poncha and Shikha Tandon set new marks at the SDAT-Aquatic Complex here on Saturday, but the penultimate day of the five-day junior National aquatic championship belonged to two Group II girls — Sampada Sudarshan (Karnataka) and Mridula Rajiv (Tamil Nadu).

Karnataka's supremacy continued as its swimmers won eight gold medals in the day's 12 events, with Sampada accounting for two. Within 15 minutes of winning the 200m butterfly crown, Sampada was back for the 200m breaststroke, which she won ahead of Statemate D. Mrudula.

``It was tiring no doubt, but I enjoyed it. More so as it happens to be my best timings,'' said the 14-year-old Class X student of Jyothy Kendriya Vidyalaya (Bangalore), who trains at the Basavangudi Aquatic Centre. She has won three golds, two silvers and two relay golds in this meet.

Mridula (00:29.39) created an upset in the 50m freestyle section, beating favourite Karnataka's V. Sivaranjani (00:29.63). In fact, Sivaranjani, who did exceptionally well in the distance events, ended up third behind Maharashtra's Shruti Reddy (00:29.42).

It was the 13-year-old Mridula's first gold medal in a National championship. Describing her race, the Class IX student of Vidya Mandir (Mylapore), who trains under K.K. Mukundan, said, ``I had an ok start. Coming up for the first breath, I saw I was ahead. It was the same at the second. But at the third, I noticed Shruti was on par, and I simply dashed on.''

Rehan set his second record in the meet when he whittled Hakimuddin's (Kar) boys' Group I 200m butterfly time of 02:11.26 by exactly a second.

Shikha bettered her girls' Group I 50m freestyle mark in the heats this morning (00:27.97 to 00:28.26 recorded last year). She won the title with a timing of 00:28.03.

Kerala's protest, citing overaged boys in Maharashtra's waterpolo team, was thrown out by the SFI.

The results:

Boys:

Group I: 200m butterfly: 1. Rehan Poncha (Kar) 02:10.26 (NR), 2. Amar Muralidharan (Mah) 02:11.77, 3. Marwyn Chen (Del) 02:18.39 (Old record: Hakimuddin (Kar), 02:11.26, 1996); 200m breaststroke: 1. Gairik Bardhan (Ben) 02:34.46, 2. Sarada Prasad Lenka (SSCB) 02:36.83, 3. N.A. Krishna (Kar) 02:38.07; 50m freestyle: 1. Varun Divgikar (Mah) 00:25.33, 2. B.H. Ashwini Kumar (Kar) 00:25.51, 3. Rahul Batra (Kar) 00:25.82.

Group II: 200m butterfly: 1. Arjun Muralidharan (Mah) 02:14.40, 2. Umapada Naskar (Ben) 02:18.36, 3. M.N. Siddarth (Kar) 02:22.13; 200m breaststroke: 1. V. Abhishek (Kar) 02:42.17, 2. B. Chetan Ram (Kar) 02:42.27, 3. Vatan Kumar (Del) 02:47.64; 50m freestyle: 1. Aniketh A. D'Souza (Kar) 00:25.94, 2. Rohit Barve (Mah) 00:26.75, 3. B. Vinod Kumar (TN) 00:27.07.

Girls:

Group I: 200m butterfly: 1. Archana Bhushan (Kar) 02:35.67, 2. Meenakshi Tokas (Del) 02:41.11, 3. Farheen Yasin (Mah) 02:42.88; 200m breaststroke: 1. Ambica N.S. Iyengar (Kar) 02:52.34, 2. Archana Bhushan (Kar) 02:54.78, 3. Saba Sait (TN) 02:55.81; 50m freestyle: 1. Shikha Tandon (Kar) 00:28.03, 2. Rishu Mehra (Del) 00:29.58, 3. Madhur Patil (Mah) 00:30.51.

Group II: 200m butterfly: 1. S. Sampada (Kar) 02:32.49, 2. Kritika Pande (Guj) 02:39.23, 3. Ruksheen Palia (Mah) 02:39.85; 200m breaststroke: 1. S. Sampada (Kar) 02:52.42, 2. D. Mrudula (Kar) 02:56.46, 3. Juilee Patwardhan (Mah) 02:59.72; 50m freestyle: 1. Mridula Rajiv (TN) 00:29.39, 2. Shruti Reddy (Mah) 00:29.42, 3. V. Sivaranjani (Kar) 00:29.63.

Waterpolo: Boys (for third place): Kerala 8 bt Punjab 1; Girls (semifinals): Bengal 5 (B. Pushpa 3) bt Kerala 3; Maharashtra 10 (Rujutha Deshpande 3) bt Punjab 0.

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