In a historic first, Indian divers Indiver Sairam and Willson Sing Ningthoujam bagged a Bronze medal in the 10m synchronized diving in men's category here on Day Two of the 11th Asian Aquatics Championships being held at the state-of-the-art indoor swimming facility at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in Ahmedabad.

The 18-year-old Indiver Sairam and 32-year-old Willson Sing Ningthoujam, both from Manipur, train at the Army Sports Institute (ASI) in Pune. They scored a brilliant 300.66 points to bag the Bronze medal finishing behind China's Zhangyu Cui, Zhanhong Xu with a score of 381.75 and Malaysia's Bertrand Rhodict Lises, Enrique M. Harold (Malasiya) 329.73. There were total of five countries participating in this event including Uzbekistan and Chinese Taipei who finished fourth and fifth respectively in this event.

The Indian divers have never medaled at this prestigious event, putting them in strong contention to earn a berth for the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan next year.

Speaking about their medal-winning dive today, the duo's coach Shannon Roy from Australia who is appointed by ASI said, "I've been working with them for the past two years and honestly, they were quite behind the rest of the world and Asia. But over the last six months in particular, we've really put a focus on the synchronised events, platform and 3m springboard events. We've spent a lot of time on a couple of camps overseas, in Malaysia, and World Championships in Singapore.

"Getting them prepared about what it's like to compete as a synchronised pair, which is very different from individual was the first priority. But also exposing them at the World Championships to that higher quality, the higher calibre was important. Getting them prepared for this meet in particular and the long term towards Asian Games," Roy explained.

In swimming, as many as 12 Indian swimmers made it to the final of their respective events and two relay teams entered the final. However, only Kushagra Rawat won a Bronze medal in the 1500m freestyle. He stopped the clock on 15:30.88 while Huy Hoang Nguyen of Vietnam clinched the Gold with a time of 15:15.01 while Ilya Sibirtsev of Uzbekistan won Silver with a time of 15:23.35.

Results:

Swimming

Men

1500m Freestyle

1. Huy Hoang Nguyen (Vietnam) 15:15.01
2. Ilya Sibirtsev (Uzbekistan) 15:23.35
3. Kushagra Rawat (India) 15:30.88

400m Individual Medley

1. Yichen Xie (China) 4:19.34
2. Hung Nguyen Tran (Vietnam) 4:20.30
3. Shun Tanaka (Japan) 4:20.56

200m Backstroke

1. Gukailai Wang (China) 1:59.78
2. Rui Yoshida (Japan) 2:01.66
3. Rishabh Das (India) 2:02.64

50m Freestyle

1. Ali Tamer Hassan (Qatar) 22.45
2. Gleb Kovalenya (Kazakhstan) 22.81
3. Mu Lun Chuang (Chinese Taipei) 22.82

50m Breaststroke

1. Haiyang Qin (China) 26.99
2. Aibat Myrzamuratov (Kazakhstan) 28.04
3. Mohamed Mahmoud Mohamed (Qatar) 28.09

Women

400m Individual Medley

1. Yanjun Zhou (China) 4:44.88
2. Koharu Nakazawa (Japan) 4:47.40
3. Thi My Tien Vo (Vietnam) 4:49.81

200m Backstroke

1. Misaki Kasahara (Japan) 2:12.09
2. Jiawei Li (China) 2:12.13
3. Mia Millar (Thailand) 2:16.51

50m Freestyle

1. Mingyu Luo (China) 25.53
2. Yi Chen Chiu (Chinese Taipei) 25.57
3. Sum Yiu Li (Hong Kong) 25.64

50m Breaststroke

1. Wui Kiu Man (Hong Kong) 32.04
2. Wing Yi Claire Cheung (Hong Kong) 32.26
3. Yi Chen Chiu (Chinese Taipei) 32.29

Diving

Men

Synchronised 10m Platform

1. Zhangyu Cui, Zhanhong Xu (China) 381.75
2. Bertrand Rhodict Lises, Enrique M. Harold (Malasiya) 329.73
3. Indiver Sairam, Willson Sing Ningthoujam (India) 300.66

Women

Synchronised 10m Platform

1. Xiahan Wu, Zihan Liu (China) 317.04
2. Nur Muhammad Abrar Raj, Nurul Farisya A. Affendi (Malaysia) 235.86
3. Gladies Lariesa G. Kore, Linar Betiliana (Indonesia) 209.58