Haldwani, Jan 29 (PTI) Fourteen-year-old rising swimmer Dhinidhi Desinghu stole the limelight with three gold medals in a stunning performance as powerhouse Karnataka made a splash on the pool, grabbing five gold and two silver in an overwhelming performance here on Wednesday.
Srihari Nataraj, a Paris Olympian like Desinghu, won two gold medals -- in men's 200m freestyle and men's 4x100m freestyle -- on the opening day of swimming competitions at Manaskhand Tarantal at Golapar here.
Desinghu, who was the youngest Indian athlete at Paris Olympics last year, first won the women's 200m freestyle event in a Games record time of 2 minutes and 3.24 seconds before adding a gold each in 100m butterfly and 4x100m freestyle.
The earlier 200m freestyle national record of 2:07.08 was in the name of Desinghu's state-mate Hashika Ramachandra set during the 2022 Games in Gujarat.
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Bhavya Sachdeva (2:08.68) of Delhi and Aditi Satish Hegde (2:09.74) of Maharashtra were distant second and third respectively in the women's 200m freestyle.
In the women's 100m butterfly, Desinghu clocked 1:03.62 to climb to the top of the podium for the second time in the day.
It was 1-2 for Karnataka as Naisha Shetty (1:04.81) took the silver while Shristi Upadhaya (1:05.20) of Odisha grabbed the bronze.
It was not done yet for Desinghu as she anchored the Karnataka quartet to women's 4x100m freestyle gold in a time of 4:01.58. The other members of the team were Nina Venkatesh, Shalini R Dixit and Latiesha Mandana.
Maharashtra (4:02.17) and Tamil Nadu (4:08.81) won the silver and bronze respectively.
Another Games record was erased with Karnataka also pocketing the men's 4x100m freestyle gold with the team of Srihari Nataraj, Aneesh S Gowda, Akash Mani and Chinatan S Shetty clocking 3:26.26.
Tamil Nadu (3:29.92) and Gujarat (3:32.23) took the silver and bronze respectively.
Nataraj won his second gold of the day, clocking 1:50.57 in the men's 200m freestyle with state-mate Aneesh S Gowda (1:52.42) and Kerala's veteran swimmer Sajan Prakash (1:53.73) finishing second and third respectively.
The lone swimming event of the day in which Karnataka did not win a gold was in men's 100m butterfly in which Tamil Nadu's Benediction Rohit stood on top of the podium with a time of 53.89 seconds.
Mihir Ambre (54.24) of Maharashtra was second while Sajan Prakash (54.52) won his second bronze medal of the day.
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