A stupendous showing by the Karnataka swimmers helped the state retain the overall title at 39th Sub Junior and 49th Junior National Aquatic Championship that concluded at Aquatic Centre of Kalinga Sports Complex in Bhubaneswar on Sunday.
The swimmers from Karnataka won a total of 119 medals including 50 gold, 47 silver and 27 bronze medals. Maharashtra finished overall second with 54 medals (11 gold, 24 silver & 19 bronze) while Tamil Nadu ended their campaign with 37 medals (10 gold, 9 silver, 18 bronze) to come third.
Just like the past four days, the final day also saw a number of national records being broken taking the total NRs being created in the meet to 19.
Maharashtra's Palak Joshi created a new NR in 200m backstroke for group I girls with a time of 2:21.38, pushing top contender Ridhima Veerendra Kumar of Karnataka to second place.
In another record-breaking performance, Vedanta V Madhir of Karnataka clocked 2:11.74 to erase the previous record of 2:11.97 held by Aaryan Bhosale in 200m backstroke for group II boys.
Karnataka's Tanishi Gupta and Dhinidhi Desinghu both continued their rivalry even on the last day and produced a nail-biting finish in the 50m butterfly in group II girls. Once again Tanishi clinched the gold clocking 28.52 while Dhinidhi clocked 28.71 to finish second.
Interestingly, both swam under the existing national record time of 28.86 that was created by Tanishi earlier in the day.
Dhinidhi also created a new national record in 200m freestyle for group II girls with a time of 2:05.62, smashing the previous record of 2:10.81 created in 2019 by Bavya Sachdeva. Finishing second in this event was Karnataka's Sri Charani Tumu with a time of 2:12.20.
Karnataka's Ishaan, Tanishi among best swimmers: Yug Chelani of Rajasthan was adjudged best swimmer in group I for his effort of winning 5 gold medals in the championships, while Karnataka's Ishaan Mehera was adjudged best swimmer in group II boys for having won 5 gold with two new national records. Tamil Nadu's Abdul Hafiz bagged best swimmer honour in group III for winning 3 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze.
Among the girls, Vritti Agarwal of Telangana won the best swimmer award in group I. Meanwhile, Tanishi bagged the honour in group II with 4 gold, 1 silver and 3 national records. Sanishi Mukherjee of Bengal walked away with the best swimmer title in group III for winning 3 gold.
