By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: Karnataka swimmers, the defending champions, continued their domination as they led from the front in the medals tally with 11 gold, eight silver and 10 bronze medals on the second day in the ongoing 38th Junior National Aquatic Championship at the Prakash Taran Pushkar pool here on Saturday.
Maharashtra with 9 gold, 6 silver and 5 bronze medals, while Tamil Nadu with 6 gold, 6 silver and 9 bronze medals are placed second and third respectively in the medals tally. On the second day Karnataka and Tamil Nadu bagged six and five gold medals each out of the total 16 that were at stake. Swimmers of Bengal, Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat and Maharashtra also won a gold medal each.
Saurabh Sangvekar of Karnataka who created National record in 1500 meter freestyle event
Two National records, one each by Saurabh Sangvekar of Karnataka in the Group I Boys’ 1500 meter freestyle and Viraj Prabhu of Maharashtra in 50 meter breaststroke were re-written on Saturday. Seventeen-year-old Saurabh improved the timing by 9 seconds, when he clocked 16:08.80 minutes to garner gold medal and thereby breaking the national record set by state-mate Gagan in 2009.
Viraj Prabhu also broke a national record set by J. Agnishwar of Tamil Nadu in 2004 in 50 meter breaststroke. Priyanka Priyadarshini of Delhi shattered the senior national record in the Group I 50M breaststroke.