Swimming
Dhinidhi Desinghu sinks records at the 50th Junior Nationals
With five gold medals, she led Karnataka's domination at the championships.
Dhinidhi Desinghu is back to her winning best after the Olympics Games at Paris. (Photo credit: Sports_Odisha)
Bhubaneshwar, Odisha: The spotlights were on the Olympian Dhinidhi Desinghu as she took to the pool at the recently concluded 40th Sub-Junior & 50th Junior National Aquatic Championship 2024.
Despite heading to the meet straight after the Paris Olympics, the teenage sensation showed no signs of slowing down and emerged from the pool bagging five gold medals in the Junior Nationals category.
The top position finishes from Dhinidhi assured Karnataka the overall championship with 799 points. Also, the state secured a total number of 104 medals, 50 of those being gold.
Records Galore
Eleven new junior national records were broken and bettered during the championships in several competitions.
Notably, Dhinidhi Desinghu shattered a decade-long record of Maana Patel in the 50m freestyle by clocking 27.16s in the heats. Thereafter, she bettered her own performance in the finals by clocking an astounding 26.89s.
With this performance, Dhinidhi inches closer to the long-standing national record of Shikha Tandon (26.37s) set in 2008.
And Dhinidhi wasn't done just yet.
With her team-mates in tow, she helped the squad bettered their own junior national record of 8:57.98s to 8:55.30s in the 4x200m freestyle.
Meanwhile, Risabh Anupam Das of Maharastra broke Olympian Srihari Nataraj’s long-standing junior national record in the 50m backstroke, clocking 26.19s.
Koijam Athoiba Singh of Manipur in the junior boys and Serena Saroha of Haryana in the junior girls bagged the best swimmers in their categories clinching four and three golds respectively.
Swimmers now coming from Manipur and Haryana are a testament to the fact that swimming as a sport is growing across the country.
