Karnataka top medal tally on Day 1 of National Games
Fourteen-year-old swimmer Dhinidhi Desinghu was the cynosure of all eyes as she stamped her authority with three gold medals as Karnataka made a splash in the pool, grabbing five gold and two silver to take the top spot in the 38th National Games medal tally in Haldwani/Dehradun on Wednesday.
At the end of the first day of competitions, Karnartaka were the early leaders with seven medals (5 gold, 2 silver) while Manipur (4 gold, 4 silver) were close second and Maharashtra (2 gold, 3 silver, 3 bronze) third in the standings.
The day certainly belonged to Desinghu, who first won the women's 200m freestyle event in a Games record time of 2 minutes and 3.24 seconds, bettering her own national record of 2:04.24 from 2023 National Games in Goa, before adding a gold each in 100m butterfly and 4x100m freestyle.
She was the youngest Indian athlete at Paris Olympics last year.
Srihari Nataraj, another Paris Olympian, won two gold medals -- in men's 200m freestyle and men's 4x100m freestyle -- on the opening day of swimming competitions at Manaskhand Tarantal at Golapar in Haldwani.
The earlier 200m freestyle national record of 2:07.08 was in the name of Desinghu's state-mate Hashika Ramachandra set during the 2022 Games in Gujarat.
Bhavya Sachdeva (2:08.68) of Delhi and Aditi Satish Hegde (2:09.74) of Maharashtra were distant second and third respectively in the women's 200m freestyle.
In the women's 100m butterfly, Desinghu clocked 1:03.62 to climb to the top of the podium for the second time in the day.
It was 1-2 for Karnataka as Naisha Shetty (1:04.81) took the silver while Shristi Upadhaya (1:05.20) of Odisha grabbed the bronze.
It was not done yet for Desinghu as she anchored the Karnataka quartet to women's 4x100m freestyle gold in a time of 4:01.58. The other members of the team were Nina Venkatesh, Shalini R Dixit and Latiesha Mandana.
Maharashtra (4:02.17) and Tamil Nadu (4:08.81) won the silver and bronze respectively.
Another Games record was erased with Karnataka also pocketing the men's 4x100m freestyle gold with the team of Srihari Nataraj, Aneesh S Gowda, Akash Mani and Chinatan S Shetty clocking 3:26.26.
Tamil Nadu (3:29.92) and Gujarat (3:32.23) took the silver and bronze respectively.
Nataraj won his second gold of the day, clocking 1:50.57 in the men's 200m freestyle with state-mate Aneesh S Gowda (1:52.42) and Kerala's veteran swimmer Sajan Prakash (1:53.73) finishing second and third respectively.
The lone swimming event of the day in which Karnataka did not win a gold was in the men's 100m butterfly in which Tamil Nadu's Benediction Rohit stood on top of the podium with a time of 53.89 seconds.
Mihir Ambre (54.24) of Maharashtra was second while Sajan Prakash (54.52) won his second bronze medal of the day.
At the brand new Trishul Shooting Range in Dehradun, Haryana's Asian Games bronze medallist shooter Ramita Jindal turned in a world class performance to top the qualification round in the women's 10m air rifle event.
The 21-year-old Ramita, who won a bronze in the Hangzhou Asian Games and a team gold in the 2023 World Championships, shot 634.9, bettering the 634.5 by Korea's Ban Hyojin in the Paris Olympic Games qualification round, to top the charts on the first day of shooting competitions.
Ramita's score gave her a 0.4-point margin over Arya Borse of Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu's Narmada Raju was only 0.1 points behind to be at the third place. Kerala's Vidarsa K Vinod, who was leading the chart at one stage, was fourth with 633.0 points.
Shreya Agarwal of Madhya Pradesh (632.0), Elavenil Valarivan of Gujarat (631.9), Meghana Sajjanar of Karnataka (631.2) and Manyata Singh of Odisha (630.1) completed the set of eight finalists who will do battle on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Punjab's Vijayveer Singh Sidhu shot 587 to emerged on top in the men's rapid fire pistol. Anish Bhanwala of Haryana (582), Neeraj Kumar of Services (579), Bhavesh Shekhawat of Rajasthan (577), Omkar Singh of Services (574) and Gurpreet Singh of Services (574) completed the list of finalists.
2012 London Olympics silver medallist Vijay Kumar of Himachal Pradesh was in the running for a place in the final, but a sub-par final series put paid to his aspirations.
Had he shot 94 instead of 90 in the four-second series in the second stage of qualification, the veteran may have forced a shoot-off for the sixth place.
In men's kho kho, Odisha beat West Bengal 44-28, Karnataka thrashed Uttarakahnd 36-18 and Andhra Pradesh defeated Chattisgarh 35-22.
In women's kho kho, Maharashtra eked out a narrow 24-20 win over West Bengal while Odisha beat Gujarat 26-16 and Karnataka thrashed Uttarakhand 41-12.
In women's rugby sevens, Delhi beat West Bengal 19-12 and Odisha overwhelmed Uttarakhand 57-0 in Pool A matches while Bihar mauled Kerala 58-0 and Maharashtra won with another huge margin of 68-0 against Tamil Nadu in Pool B games.
In men's rugby sevens, Maharashtra hammered Kerala 39-0 in Pool A while Odisha routed Bihar 29-0 in Pool B.
In badminton team event, Rajasthan beat Arunachal Pradesh 4-1 in men's Group B while Uttarakhand eked out a 3-2 win over Gujarat in women's Group B.
In waterpolo matches, Maharashtra beat Haryana 20-0 and Services got the better of Punjab 17-1 in men's event while Kerala trounced Tamil Nadu 25-0 and West Bengal thrashed Haryana by an identical 25-0 margin in women's competition.
In basketball 5x5, Delhi beat Rajasthan 94-75 in men's event while Kerala defeated Uttar Pradesh 76-37 in women's competition.
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