*Representational image credit Olympics.com
New Delhi, 7 July: Promising teenagers Aryan Nehra and Lineysha AK emerged as the best swimmers in men's and women's categories respectively at the Senior National Aquatic Championship which concluded in Hyderabad last evening
Aryan Nehra, who had already qualified for the continental showpiece in men’s 800m freestyle, won four gold medals -the most by any at this Championship swimmer in the edition,
The 19-year-old won the 400m freestyle in 3:52.55, overtaking the previous record of 3:52.75 held by Kushagra Rawat. Olympian Sajan Prakash, Kushagra Rawat, and Advait Page were also part of the race
Aryan other three gold medals came in 800m freestyle, 1500m freestyle, and 400m medley, in which he also logged a national mark.
Lineysha AK won two gold medals and a silver to be crowned the best swimmer in the women’s category. Her gold medals came in the 100m and 200m breaststroke events with national record timings. However, She settled for silver in the 50m breaststroke, losing to Manavi Varma.
Sajan Prakash made a comeback to win gold medals in his pet 100m and 200m butterfly events.
Maana Patel rewrote her national record in the 100m backstroke to win the gold medal but had to settle for silver as Suvana Baskar won the 50m backstroke. Siva Sridhar, who won three gold medals at the last edition, bagged a solitary gold in the 200m medley.
Among other notable performances, Nina Venkatesh broke national records in the women’s 50m and 100m butterfly events. Karnataka's 13-year-old Dhinidhi Desinghu set a national record in the 200m freestyle with a timing of 2:04.24.
The 76th edition of the national swimming championship was held at Hyderabad’s GMC Balayogi Sports Complex. Apart from being a qualifying event for the Paris Olympics, the four-day meet was the final chance for swimmers to make the cut for the Asian Games, to be held in China later this year.
The qualifying mark for the Asian Games in individual events was the time obtained by the sixth-place finisher in the last edition of the Asian Games at Jakarta 2018.