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Swimming

FINA World Junior Swimming Championships 2022: Apeksha Fernandes becomes first Indian woman to reach finals

The 17-year-old swimmer is also the third-ever Indian to reach the finals at the Juniors.

FINA World Junior Swimming Championships 2022: Apeksha Fernandes becomes first Indian woman to reach finals
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Apeksha Fernandes with her 'Best Swimmer' in the girls category award (Source: Twitter/Tanmay Das)

By

Rajdeep Saha

Updated: 1 Sep 2022 1:39 PM GMT

India's Apeksha Fernandes has qualified for the World Junior Swimming Championships finals. She achieved the feat in the women's 200m Butterfly at the 8th edition of the meet taking place in Lima.

The other Indians to have qualified for the finals at the World Juniors include Srihari Nataraj who finished sixth in the 50m backstroke in 2019. The then-18-year-old broke the national record thrice in two days, bettering his own timings each time.

Back in 2008, Virdhawal Khade came 5th, 6th, and 7th in men's 50m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle, and 100m Freestyle finals respectively at the world juniors.

In the heats, Fernandes placed fourth with a timing of 2:18:18, and an overall 8th to earn her place in the final. This timing, coincidentally, created a new national record. Earlier, the record stood at 2:18:39 which was created by Apeksha herself at the junior Nationals held in June 2022.


(Screengrab: FINA YouTube channel)

In the junior Nationals, the Maharashtra local created five new National Records (Best Indian Performance) in as many days. By adding another one in her kitty, Apeksha has now broken seven national records in her last 11 races, if heats of the nationals are counted.

She will also be competing in the 100m Butterfly as well as 100m Backstroke events in the upcoming days of the competition.

Another star swimmer, Vedaant Madhavan, faced an unfortunate exit from his men's 200m Freestyle heats as he lost balance and fell into the water, thereby getting disqualified.

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