Records for Sejwal, Balakrishnan in Sr National Aquatic

Jaipur: Olympian Sandeep Sejwal and upcoming M B Balakrishnan bettered two records, while Aron D`Souza and Surabhi Tipre continued with the golden spree in 64th Senior National Aquatic Championships at Sawai Mansingh Stadium. Railway swimmer Sejwal clocked 29.11s in 50m Breaststroke event to improve over his own record of 29.37s set in 2009. Puneet Rana of Haryana finished second with 29.93s while Arjun J P of RSPB timed 30.14s to become third in the race. Balakrishnan, a third year student of Guindy Engineering College, posted 1:03.88s in 50m Backstroke event and bettered his own mark of 27.56s which he had made in 2009. Meanwhile, Karnataka`s men`s relay team bettered their own national record in the 4x200 event. Both Aron and Surabhi won their 400m Freestyle events and were then part of their respective relay teams to bag the golds. Karnataka team comprising Rehan Poncha, Rohit Havaldar, Gagan A P and Aron clocked 8:2.56s to better the old mark of 8:3.25s, also set in 2007. Railways grabbed the silver with 8:23.01s and Maharashtra finished third for bronze with a timing of 8:33.78s.In 4x200m womens relay, Maharashtra claimed gold clocking 9:11.52s with fine effort from Surabhi, Arti Ghorpade, Aditi Ghumatkar and Kanchi Desai. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu bagged silver and bronze with the timing of 9:40.40s and 9:44.23s respectively. Aron grabbed his third gold of the day in the men`s 200m Freestyle, clocking 21:57.61s but failed to better his own record of 1:53.36s set in 2009. The silver went to Mandar A Divase (Police, 1:57.61s) and bronze to Rohit Havaldar (Karnataka) who clocked 1.58.53s.Surabhi too claimed her third gold of the day in the 200m Freestyle event, clocking 2.08.76s, while Talasha Prabhu gave 2.09.69s to grab the silver and Arti Ghorpade timed 2.10.11s for the bronze. Fancied Richa Mishra could not finish at the podium in a strong field. 14-year-old Delhi girl Priyanka Pridarshini too hogged the limelight by winning the 50m Breaststroke event with a timing of 36.09s. Mankiran Kaur of Punjab and Poorva Shetye of Maharashtra bagged the silver and bronze, registering 36.32s and 36.39s, respectively. Another star swimmer Veer Dhawal Khade won the last event of the day - 100m Butterfly - with a timing of 55.62s, which was well short of Poncha`s record of 55.17s. The silver went to Arjun Murlidharan (57.74s) and bronze to Tarun Tokas (57.83s). PTI