Swimming Nationals | Srihari Natraj shatters his own national record twice to clinch gold

On Day 2 of the 72nd Senior National Aquatic Championship, there were a total of five national records that were shattered in nine different categories, which included seven individual events and two team events.

In the heats, Srihari Natraj finished the race with a timing of 26:55 seconds and broke his own national record. Further, in the final race, he broke the heats record by finishing the race in 26.18 seconds to bag a gold in the men's 50m backstroke event. Madhu PS clinched a silver, while Vedant Seth had to remain satisfied with a bronze medal.

Virdhawal Khade went ahead to clinch a gold in the men's 50m freestyle event. The second position was occupied by Aaron D’Souza and Neel Roy managed to claim the third position. Khade had also secured a bronze medal at the 2010 Asian Games edition.

The national record set by Sajan Prakash four years ago in the men's 1500m freestyle event was broken by Advait Page of Madhya Pradesh who finished the race with a timing of 15:42.67 seconds, better than the previous record, which was 15:45.83 seconds.

Aryan Makhija grabbed the second place, while bronze was secured by Kushagra Rawat.

Sandeep Sejwal from Delhi claimed the 200m men's breaststroke event with a timing of 2:15.76 seconds. Tamil Nadu's S Dhanush clinched the silver, clocking 2:19.32 seconds.

In the women's 4x100 medley, Yuga Birnale, Trisha Karkhanis, Kareena Shankta and Kenisha Gupta forming the SFI team, set up a new national record by completing the race in 4:29.81 seconds.

In the men's counterpart event, Srihari, Likith SP, Avinash Mani and Rahul M won the gold medal. In the women's 200m breaststroke category, Karnataka's Saloni Dalal established a new national record clocking 2:41.88 seconds and won the gold. In the women's 400m medley category, Richa Mishra from the police department shattered her own national record which she had set in 2009 to bag a gold medal.