Sujith leads India's domination

The tricolour has been raised with ridiculous regularity in Pakistan over the last few days.

The Indian men rounded off their domination of the pool snatching two more gold and as many meet records besides a silver and bronze each at the 9th South Asian Federation Games in Islamabad on Saturday.

Thus, the men's events alone has brought India 17 gold, five silver and two bronze in the swimming competition.

Sujith Thangappan increased his individual tally to seven gold after winning the 100 metre freestyle and anchoring the 4x100m freestyle relay events, both in record time.

Sujith led from start to finish in the individual sprint event to come in 53.53 seconds, erasing the old mark of 53.95s by Sebastian Xavier set in Chennai in 1995.

Compatriot Rahul Batra bagged the silver in 54.67s while Arun Karunaratne of Sri Lanka (55.23) took the bronze.

Sujit and Batra then combined with Amar Muralidharan and Benoy Sebastian to give India the 4x100m freestyle relay gold in a record time of 3 min 39.40 secs.

Interestingly, Sujit was part of the quartet -- which included Hakimuddin, Martin Joseph and Elvis Ali Hazarika -- that held the previous best of 3m:39.73s, set in Kathmandu in 1999.

Bangladesh (3m:44.84s) and Sri Lanka (3m:46.08s) collected the silver and bronze respectively.

Bangladesh's Mohd Rubel Rana (1m:2.78s) was too good for Dipes Bairagi in the 100m backstroke event.

It was a neck and neck affair in the first 40 metres but Rana forged ahead thereafter and never looked back. Pakistani Faiz Muhammad came third.

The bronze came in the 100m butterfly, where Akbar Ali Mir finished behind Conrad Anthony Francis of Sri Lanka, who broke K Suresh Kumar's meet record with a timing of 56.35s, and Bangladesh's Md. Jewel Ahmed.

Results (Indian unless specified):

100m freestyle: 1. T A Sujith, 53.53 secs; 2. Rahul Batra, 54.67s; 3. Arun Karunaratne (SL) 55.23s.

100m butterfly: 1. C A Francis (SL) 56.35s; 2. Md. Jewel Ahmed (Bang) 57.90s; 3. Akbar Ali Mir, 59.01s.

100m backstroke: 1. Md Rubel Rana (Bangla) 1m:02.78s; 2. Dipes Bairagi, 1m:03.48s; 3. Faiz Mohd (Pak) 1m:04.82s.

4x100m free style relay: 1. India (Rahul Batra, Amar Muralidharan, Benoy Sebastian, Sujith) 3m:39.40s; 2. Bangladesh (3m:44.84s) and 3. Sri Lanka (3m:46.08s).