National championship: Srihari sets National record in 50m backstroke

Rising star Srihari Natraj lived up to the expectations in style by setting a National record in the men’s 50m backstroke while the seasoned duo of Veerdhawal Khade and Richa Mishra won gold in the National swimming championship here on Sunday.

Men's 50m backstroke gold medal winner Srihari Natraj (centre) accompanied by silver medalist P. S. Madhu (left) and bronze medalist Arvind Mani.

Rising star Srihari Natraj lived up to the expectations in style by setting a National record in the men’s 50m backstroke while the seasoned duo of Veerdhawal Khade and Richa Mishra won gold in the National swimming championship here on Sunday.

Once the focus shifted to relays under lights, Karnataka’s 4x100 medley quartet of Suvana C. Baskar, Saloni Dalal, Damini Gowda and V. Malvika set a meet record in 4:31.70 (minutes:seconds) to erase Maharashtra’s 4:34.50 set in 2013.

Srihari, the hero of junior National aquatics this summer, outpaced defending champion P. S. Madhu who had set the record of 26.73 last year. Srihari clocked 26.58 and left the Services’ duo of Madhu and Arvind Mani to settle for lesser medals.

Though favourite Saloni Dalal was pipped at the post by Maharasthra’s Jyoti Patil in 200m breastroke final, three other National record holders had it easy.

Khade regained the title of being the ‘fastest swimmer of the meet’, Richa won back the medley ‘double’ and Sajan Prakash expectedly won the 1500m title.

Results