Junior National Aquatic: Impressive Dhinidhi adds to Karnataka's gold rush

Bhubaneswar, July 18 (IANS) Karnataka's Dhinidhi Desinghu clocked 1:04.01 seconds to create a new national record in the 100m butterfly for group II girls on day three of the ongoing 48th Junior National Aquatic Championships being held at the Biju Patnaik Swimming Pool in the iconic Kalinga Stadium, here.

It was a closely-fought race as the youngster from Bengaluru narrowly beat state-mate Hashika Ramachandra, who incidentally held the previous national record created last year. Hashika too swam within the previous record time of 1:05.51 seconds by clocking 1:04.10 seconds. Assam's Subhranshini Priyadarshini took home the bronze medal with a time of 1:07.02.

Haryana's Krish Jain swam a sensational sprint in the 50m backstroke event for group II boys to sink his own national record of 28.31 seconds created in the heats. He clocked 28.06 to win the gold and beat Telangana's Suhas Preetham M (28.51) and Karnataka's Ishaan Mehra (28.90).

Maharashtra's Apeksha Fernandes, on the other hand, continued to have an impressive outing in the prestigious event as she created yet another national record enroute to a gold medal in the 100m butterfly for group I girls. She clocked 1:01.94 seconds to better the previous record of 1:02.71 held by Astha Choudhary created last year. Finishing second in this race was Bengal's Nilabjaa Gosh who clocked 1:03.68 secs and the third place went to Karnataka's Nina Venkatesh who timed 1:03.93.

Adding to Maharashtra's medal tally was Vedaant Madhavan, who won his second gold medal at the Championships. He won the 100m freestyle for group I boys with a time of 52.12 secs to beat Karnataka's Karthikeyan Nair (53.39) and Tamil Nadu's Jashua Thomas (53.58).

For Karnataka, Ridhima Veerendra Kumar added another gold medal in the 50m backstroke for group I girls. She clocked 30.25 secs while her state-mate R Navaneeth Gowda won the gold in 400m medley for group II boys.