Dhinidhi Desinghu has again stunned the entire aquatics world by clocking the best Indian time in the 100 m freestyle at the Asian Group Aquatics Championships.
14-year-old Indian swimmer Dhinidhi Desinghu has produced a record-breaking swim to clock the ‘Best Indian Time’ in the girl’s 100m freestyle event on her way to a fourth-place finish at the 11th Asian Group Aquatics Championships in the Philippines.
Dhinidhi broke the previous record of 57.35s set by another talented young swimmer Kenisha Gupta. She bettered the record by 0.02s to complete the race in 57.33s. Furthermore, the teenager’s performance was better than what senior Olympian Maana Patel (58.42s) and 21-year-old Shivangi Sarma (59.05s) could manage in the women’s 100m freestyle event. Japan’s Minami Yu won the gold with a timing of 56.45, while Sum Yiu Li (56.57) and Vietnam’s Hien Nguyen (56.69) claimed the silver and bronze medals respectively.
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In men’s 100m backstroke, Srihari Nataraj won the gold medal with a timing of 55.52s while Maana fetched the silver in the women’s event with a time of 1:04.14s. Nataraj joined Likith SP, Rohit B, and Anand Anil Kumar Shylaja to pick up his second gold of the day in the men’s 4x100m medley relay.
The Indian quartet clocked 3:43.13s to finish ahead of Vietnam (3:44.40s) and Iran (3:45.40s). Seasoned swimmers Sajan Prakash and Aneesh Gowda also stood on the podium, bagging the silver and bronze medals respectively.
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While Prakash clocked 2:00.66s, Aneesh touched the pad at 2:03.85s in the men’s 200m butterfly event. Long-distance swimmer Aryan Nehra fetched the silver in the men’s 400m freestyle with a time of 3:54.38s. In swimming, national record timings are those achieved at the National Aquatic Championships. The times recorded in other meets are called the ‘best Indian time’. In age-group swimming meets, swimmers over the age of 18 compete in the senior or ‘A’ events.
Junior swimmers who are 16 to 17 years old compete in the ‘B’ events while 14 to 15-year-olds participate in the ‘C’ category. Interestingly, Dhinidhi had become the youngest female swimmer to win seven gold medals in the National Games last year. She had also competed at the Asian Games and now aims to stamp her authority in the Olympics.
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