Maharashtra gets 15 acquatic medals

Maharashtra won a total 15 medals and finished overall sixth in the 71st Glenmark Senior National Championships in Bhopal. In water polo,  Maharashtra and Railways won the gold in the Women’s and Men’s section respectively on the final day. Police and Services won the silver.

Virdhawal Khade swam a fantastic last 50 to help Maharashtra — represented by Jyotsna Pansare, Shewjal Mankar, Arya Rajguru and Virdhawal himself — to win the bronze with a time of 1:54.25 in the final event of the meet, 4X50m Mixed Medley Relay.

Team Railways represented by Aaron Dsouza, Sandeep Sejwal, Avantika Chawan and Aditi Dhumatkar won gold with a new meet record of 1:51.06.  Karnataka represented by Srihari Nataraj, Vaishnav Hegde, Damini Gowda and Deeksha Ramesh won silver with a time of 1:52.46, which was also a better meet record.

Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka, who won the Individual Championships at the Junior Nationals earlier in Pune, added the Best Swimmer award after winning 4 golds 1 silver and creating three new meet records in Bhopal. He has also qualified for the Youth Olympics to be held in Argentina in November 2018. He edged Sajjan Prakash who won 5 golds and had two meet records. Shivani Kataria was named the best swimmer for women with 4 golds and two new records.

The overall championship in swimming was won by Karnataka with a total score of 238 points. The Men’s Championships was won by Railways with a total score of 139 points while the Women’s Championship was won by Karnataka with a total score of 133 points. A total of 12 records were created during the meet. The Diving Championship was won by Services with 34 points in the Men’s section, while the Railways won the Women’s section with a total of 31 points.