Swikmming: Sejwal bags two gold, Poncha settles for silver

Jaipur: Rising swimmer Sandeep Sejwal stole the limelight as he grabbed two gold and set an individual meet record in 200m breast stroke on the opening day of the 64th Senior National Swimming Championships. Sandeep grabbed his first gold of the day after his Railways team won the 4x100m medley relay with a new national record timing of 4:00.55 secs. Sejwal bettered the Delhi Commonwealth Games qualifying mark of 2:19.09 in 200m breast stroke. He improved his own record of 2:18.85 set in 2006 by clocking 2:17.92.Puneet Rana of Haryana and Aditya Roshan of Karnataka grabbed second and third places clocking 2:21.06 and 2:35.53 respectively. But the shock result of the day was Karnataka swimmer Rohit Havaldar piping favourite and statemate Rehan Poncha for the 200m back stroke gold. Poncha clocked 2:09.94 while Havaldar timed 2:09.22 to clinch the gold. The bronze medal went to Praveen Tokas who timed 2:08.92 sec. In the last event of the day, Veerdhawal Khade of Maharashtra showed his prowess by clinching gold in men`s butterfly in 25.03sec. Tarun Tokas of Railways (26.39) and Arjun Murlidharan of Maharashtra (26.39) won silver and bronze respectively.Other Results: Women`s 200m Breast Stroke: M Raghvi (TN) 2:48.32; Poorva Shetye (Mah) 2:50.58; Priyanka Priyadarshini (Delhi) 2:51.39 Women`s 200m Back Stroke: Ananya Panigrahi (Mah) 2:28.29; Fariha Zaman (Karna) 2:33.75; Charu Mishra (Police) 2:34.12 Women`s 50m Butterfly: Jyotsna Pansare (Mah) 0:29.35; Talasha Prabhu (Goa) 0:29.59; Shubha C (Karna) 0.29.79. PTI