Swimming
Rujula breaks 17-year-old women's 50m freestyle swimming record
Meanwhile, Delhi’s Bhavya Sachdeva shattered a 10-year-old meet record in 1500m freestyle.
Rujula set the national record in 50m freestyle on Tuesday. (Photo credit: SFI)
Karnataka’s Rujula S delivered the best Indian performance to emerge as the fastest female swimmer on Day 3 of the 78th Senior National Aquatic Championships in Bhubaneshwar on Tuesday.
Rujula clocked 26.36s in 50m freestyle to break Shikha Tandon’s longstanding mark by 0.01s set in Singapore back in 2008.
Rujula also smashed the meet record of 26.47s set by Rujuta Khade in 2023.
Railway’s Avantika Sudhir Chavan (26.58s) and India’s youngest Olympian at the 2024 Paris Games Dhinidhi Desinghu (26.69s) of Karnataka settled for silver and bronze, respectively.
In the men’s 400m freestyle, the race turned electric as every swimmer kicked into top gear in the last 100m stretch. But it was Gujarat’s Aryan Nehra who edged ahead to claim the gold with a time of 3:55.96s.
Delhi’s Kushagra Rawat (3:56.84s) and Karnataka’s Aneesh S Gowda (3:57.17s) won silver and bronze, respectively.
The women’s 200m butterfly podium was owned by Railway’s Astha Choudhury (2:20.63s), Tamil Nadu’s Roshini Balasubramanian (2:20.77s) and Odisha’s Shristi Upadhaya (2:23.11s).
In the men's 50m backstroke, two-time Olympian Srihari Nataraj stopped the clock in 25.70s. Rishabh Anupam (26.02s) of Maharashtra and Akash Mani (26.12s) of Karnataka took home silver and bronze, respectively.
Olympian Sajan Prakash delivered a strong performance in the 200m butterfly, finishing with a time of 1:58.98s. Railway’s Bikram Changmai (2:02.13s) and Karnataka’s Dharshan S (2:03.11s) settled with silver and bronze, respectively.
In women's 50m backstroke, Vihitha Loganathan (29.99s) of Karnataka won the gold, Sanjana Prabhugaonker (30.68s) of Goa bagged silver and Bengal’s Soubrity Mondal (30.70s) won the silver.
Bhavya shatters 10-year-old meet record
Delhi’s Bhavya Sachdeva smashed the 10-year-old women's1500m freestyle meet record by clocking 17:35.07s. She got the better of Malavika V’s record of 17:39.16s established in 2015.
This marked Bhavya’s second gold and third overall medal at the championships. Earlier she claimed the gold in 400m freestyle and a silver in 200m freestyle.
In a closely contested race for silver, Telangana’s Vritti Agarwal (17:41.36) edged out Karnataka’s Thanya Shadakshari (17:41.45).
The men’s 4x100m medley relay concluded the day as Tamil Nadu set the pool on fire with a new meet record, clocking 3:45.09s. The team included Nithik Nathella, Danush Suresh, Benedicton Rohit and Adhithya Dinesh. The previous record of 3:45.66s set in 2024 was held by Tamil Nadu. Karnataka and Railways finished second and third, respectively.
At the day’s action, Karnataka continues to lead with 25 medals - 10 gold, 4 silver and 11 bronze followed by Tamil Nadu (10 medals) and RSPB (11 medals).
