Swimming
Kushagra Rawat secures 1500m gold at South Africa Aquatics Meet
Kushagra won India's first medal at the South Africa Aquatics Meet, while Maana Patel made a 13th place finish in the 50m Backstroke event.
Swimmer Kushagra Rawat (Source: New Indian Express)
Freestyle swimmer Kushagra Rawat secured the first medal for India at the South Africa Aquatics meet in Newton Park Swimming Pool, Gqeberha, South Africa on Monday.
He clocked a time of 15:41:61 to win the gold medal in the men's 1500m freestyle event. He was eight seconds ahead of the second-placed Matthew Caldwell of South Africa.
The six-member Indian swimming contingent is competing under the team of Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) at the event.
Two more Indian swimmers, Anurag Singh (16:22.75) and Krishna Gadakh (16:56.71), finished 5th and 10th respectively in the same event.
Kushagra won the gold medal but could not better his personal best timing (15:31.65) and is still very much behind the Olympic Qualification mark of 15:00.99.
Meanwhile, national record holder Maana Patel missed the women's 50m backstroke final A, clocking a time of 30.53 seconds in the preliminary round. She finished in 13th position overall after her Final B performance, with a time of 30.75 seconds.
Both Kushagra and Maana have a few more events lined up in the coming days, where they will be aiming for even better timings.
