How Dhinidhi Desinghu corrected a historical error in SFI records with Best Indian Time

Dhinidhi Desinghu’s sub-57s performance in the 100m freestyle at the recently concluded Senior Aquatics Nationals in Bhubaneshwar addressed two key goals – established a new best Indian performance and effectively corrected a longstanding typo in the Swimming Federation of India’s (SFI) official records.

Back in 2008 at the Malaysian Open, Shikha Tandon's completed the race in 57.99s. It was mistakenly noted in the SFI records as 57s – the record stood test of time for 17 long years.

“Back in 2008, I did 57s in 100m freestyle. But I think over the course of the past few years, the fraction was incorrectly registered, and that has led to a lot of confusion,” Shikha Tandon told The Bridge in an exclusive conversation on Sunday.

Technically, Dhinidhi Desinghu swam to the best Indian performance at the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur last year, clocking 57.08s. But her timing was not counted as the best time as the official records stated otherwise.

“Now, Dhinidhi went 56s, so she’s definitely the first one to go under 57. She has 100m, 200m, 400m records, and she was pretty quick in the 50m as well. She’s still young, has a long way to go,” Shikha said.

Dhinidhi had finished third with 26.69s in 50m freestyle. The same event was topped by Rujula S with a time of 26.36s.

Rujula's timing was just enough to break Shikha’s another longstanding mark by 0.01s set in Singapore back in 2008.

Two records shattered in one meet was a development that left the Olympian nostalgic, surprised and excited, all at the same time.

“When I heard the news, it was a combination of surprise, nostalgia and excitement. I never thought it would take this long. And the nostalgia obviously just brought back so many memories of when I was competing. And the excitement was finally that Indian, especially on the women’s side, is moving in a way that I was honestly expecting it to be much sooner,” Shikha said.

“There are a lot more girls in the swimming ecosystem now. In the middle, it went through a phase where there weren’t that many competing. There's obviously a lot of technology that people world over are using to train, to recover. And from an Indian context, there's just a lot more money, a lot more resources going into swimming. So, I think it’s a combination of all those different things which have led up to this point,” she added.

Defining moments

Shikha is the director of global partnerships at SVEXA (Silicon Valley Exercise Analytics), a US-based sports‑tech company specialising in AI-powered athlete performance and recovery solutions. Prior to this, she worked at the US anti-doping agency on their science team. She started her remarkable swimming journey at age eight and won her first national medal just a year later.

Shikha went on to become first Indian woman to qualify for two events (50m & 100m freestyle) in the 2004 Athens Olympics. A year later, she was conferred with the Arjuna Award.

Recalling her journey, Shikha shares two defining moments that stood out in her career, moments that are still fresh and are close to her heart.

"One was my first Nationals. I won a bronze in the 50m breaststroke. It was a year after I started swimming. After the race, I was crying, my mom was crying.

"She was crying out of happiness because she was not expecting me to win that medal. And I was crying because I didn’t like the ribbon on the bronze medal. I wanted the ribbon on the gold medal. That was something I still remember, it basically kick-started the whole swimming competitive journey for me," she shared.

"The other one that I definitely remember, feels like yesterday, but it was back in 2008 when I was trying to qualify for the Beijing Olympics and missed it by 0.05s of a second. And it’s around the same time that I created that National record. And I swallowed water at 35 meters and coughed my way from 35m to 50m. I think it was 0.1s second off. But I won a medal even after all of that. It was one of my last competitive swims representing India,” she added.