Swimmers shatter records on day three

Tapan Mohanta

Ranchi, February 15 (PTI) Richa Mishra was again the starof the day today as five records were shattered with swimmerscontinuing to make a big splash in the 34th National Gameshere today.

The Delhi girl picked up two gold medals with recordtimings today to make it six yellow metals in total by the endof day three, while she finished behind Goa''s Talasha Prabhuin the sprint event to settle for a silver at the Veer BudhuBhagat Aquatic Stadium in Mega Sports Complex here.

Indian swimming sensation Virdhawal Khade rewrote hisearlier record in the heats as went on to improve it in thefinal to emerge the fastest swimmer of the meet.

Promising Karnataka youngster Gagan A P and compatriotRohit Havaldar smashed the remaining two records of the day.

It was again a memorable day for Maharashtra andKarnataka who went on to clinch two gold medals each on daythree of the competition.

Battling a stomach upset, 27-year-old Delhi girl Richaclocked 05.09:47s to improve nine-year-old record of 05.09:91in the 400m individual medley, while Karnataka bagged thesilver and bronze through Pooja Alva (05.25:03) and SushakaPratap (05.30:21), respectively.

Richa smashed her four year old record (02.29:34) in the200m backstroke when she swam with a timing of 02.26:82.

In the first 50m Richa trailed Ananya Panigrahi ofMaharashtra but the ace swimmer slowly went ahead andstretched the lead before eclipsing her previous best.

Ananya had to be content with silver with a timing of02.29:22, while her statemate Aarti Ghorpade took the bronzeclocking 02.32:04. .