Dhinidhi, Rishabh Das swim to best Indian time

Karnataka’s Dhinidhi Desinghu and Maharashtra’s Rishabh Das created ripples in the pool with best Indian performances at the 78th Senior National Aquatic Championship in Bhubaneshwar on Wednesday.

Dhinidhi became the first Indian woman to swim below 57s in 100m freestyle, clocking 56.78s. She broke Shikha Tandon’s 17-year-old mark of 57s set in Singapore.

Statement Rujula S (57.79s) and Assam’s Jahnabi Kashyap (58.60s) settled for silver and bronze, respectively.

Dhinidhi also rewrote Shivangi Sarma’s meet record of 57.73s set in 2022.

Meanwhile, Rishabh clocked 2:00.65s in 200m backstroke to rewrite Srihari Nataraj’s mark of 2:00.84s set at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham.

Utkarsh Patil of Karnataka narrowly missed the gold, clocking 2:00.89s to settle for silver in a nail-biting photo finish. Tamil Nadu’s Nithik Nathella (2:03.64s) took home the bronze medal.

Both Rishabh and Utkarsh battered the meet record of 2:02.29s, which stood in the name of Srihari Nataraj set in Bhopal in 2019.

Benedicton Rohit had his second record-breaking swim in Bhubaneshwar, clocking 24.11s in 50m butterfly. He improved his own meet record of 24.13s set in the morning heats.

Earlier, Benediction set the best Indian performance in men’s 100m butterfly on the opening day.

Jananjoy Hazarika of Assam, with the time of 24.26s, and Olympian Sajan Prakash representing Police clocked 24.76s to settle for second and third.

A delighful watch

The men’s 800m proved to be another spectator’s delight with Gujarat’s Aryan Nehra (8:10.40) and Delhi’s Kushagra Rawat (8:11.89) battling fiercely for the gold in a thrilling final.

Both swimmers went neck and neck for most of the race, going full throttle in the final 100 meters. In the end, Nehra pulled off a winner while Rawat had to settle for silver.

Karnataka’s Dhakshan S (8:17.42) and Aneesh S Gowda (8:17.63) battled hard for third place, with Dhakshan finishing just 0.21s ahead.

Other results include, women’s 50m butterfly with Karnataka’s Nina Venkatesh (28.25s) and Manavi Varma (28.55s) winning gold and bronze, respectively while Bengal’s Snigdha Ghosh (28.55s) settled for silver.

In women’s 400m Individual Medley, Maharashtra’s Saanvi Deshwal (5:03.85s) finished first, Tamil Nadu’s Shreenithi Natesan (5:10.98s) came second and Karnataka’s Thanya Shadakshari (5:14.82s) finished third.

Vihitha Nayana Loganathan of Karnataka emerged supreme in women’s 200m backstroke clocking 2:21.85s as state-mate Naisha (2:22.95s) finished second and Odisha’s Pratyasa Ray (2:24.77s) finished third.

In men’s 4x100 freestyle relay, Tamil Nadu won with a meet record time of 3:26.26s. Team included Jashua Thomas, Benedicton Rohit, Mj Praveen Kumar and Adhithya Dinesh improved on the 3:28.09s mark set by Karnataka in 2024. Karnataka (3:27.21s) and Maharashtra (3:27.32s) made the podium.

At the end of day’s action, Karnataka leads with 36 medals - 14 gold, 9 silver and 13 bronze followed by Tamil Nadu (14 medals) and Maharashtra and RSPB (12 medals) are joint third.