Rajkot: As the National Games Aquatics competition got underway at the Sardar Patel Aquatics Complex here on Sunday, Assam's Astha Choudhury earned the distinction of being the first swimmer to set a record.
She beat Richa Mishra's 2011 Ranchi Games record of 1:04.41 with a time of 1:03.91 in the 100m Butterfly heats.
In Guwahati last month, the Butterfly expert set a new national record with a time of 1:03.07.
In the heats, Divya Satija (Haryana) and Tanishi Gupta (Karnataka) were second and third fastest.
Sajan Prakash, who won the title of Best Male Athlete at the 2015 National Games, began his quest to win the same honour by competing in two individual finals and the final of the Kerala team's 4x100m Freestyle relay. Sajan Prakash made his intentions extremely apparent on a day when his younger Olympic coworker, Srihari Nataraj, only competed in the Freestyle relay heats.
He was cautious in performing well enough to qualify for the finals in the 200-meter freestyle and 100-meter butterfly events because he was aware of the number of races he would have to swim in to win that championship. After emerging stars Aneesh S Gowda and Sambhavv Rao (both from Karnataka), Gujarat's top hope Aryan Nehra, and Vishal Grewal, Sajan Prakash began with a 1:55.74 in the 200 Freestyle heat (Delhi), placing fifth, ANI reported.
Sajan Prakash's training partner in Dubai, Vedaant Madhavan, also advanced to the final. Harsh Saroha, the national champion from Haryana, who came in seventh, has been designated as a reserve for the championship match.
With a time of 56.16 seconds, the incredibly skilled Sajan Prakash easily won the 100m Butterfly qualifying round. Bikram Changmai of Assam was the second-fastest qualifier from the heats, although Sambhavv Rao also qualified for his second final with a time of 57.47.
Dhindihi Desinghu, a young swimmer from Karnataka, finished first in the women's 200-meter freestyle preliminaries in 2:11.44. She will take first place in the final lane assignment ahead of Shivangi Sarma (Assam) and Bhavya Sachdeva (Delhi).