Mangalore, Sep 13 : An eventful last day of the 77th Senior National Aquatic Championships 2024 ended with Karnataka being crowned champions again. They earned 17 Gold medals, 12 Silver medals and four Bronze medals to clinch the title. Maharashtra was the overall Runner-up with 6 Gold medals, 4 Silver Medals, and 4 Bronze medals.

Aneesh S Gowda, from Karnataka, was named the Individual Champion from the Men's category with four Gold medals and Hashika Ramachandra, also from Karnataka, claimed the top spot among Women with three Golds and one Silver medal.

The icing on the cake for Karnataka was the creation of a new record in the Men's 4x100m Freestyle. Prithvi M, Kartikeyan Nair, Akash Mani, and Srihari Nataraj combined to post 3:28.09 and better Karnataka's own record of 3:28.16 from 2023. Unni krishnan s, Vikkas Prabhakar, Vinayak Vijay, and Anand As from Services Sports Control Board finished second with 3:28.93.

The meet also witnessed Railway Sports Promotion Board's Shivangi Sarma, Astha Choudhury, Kanya Nayyar, and Avantika Sudhir Chavan break Maharashtra's existing record of 4:02.24 in the Women's 4x100m Freestyle, created in 2023, by clocking 4:01.83. Karnataka's Shirin, Vihitha Nayana Loganathan, Shalini R Dixit, and Hashika Ramachandra came in second at 4:02.62.

In the Women's 400m Individual Medley, Karnataka's Thanya Shadakshar was marginally leading in the initial 100m of Butterfly but Maharashtra's Saanvi Deshwal pulled ahead of her in the next 100m Backstroke. Thanya made up some distance in Breaststroke to come up alongside Saanvi and in the last 100m of freestyle put a significant distance between them to finish first with 5:08.10 while Saanvi came in second with 5:10.89.

SSCB's Vinayak Vijay was leading the 400m Individual Medley in the first 100m Butterly, accompanied by Dhulipudi Varshith, from Telangana and Yug Chelani, from Rajasthan. Dhulipudi and Yug overtook Vinayak in the next 100m Backstroke, but Vinayak clawed his way back into contention in the Breastroke. In the last 100m of Freestyle, Yug Chelani and Andhra Pradesh's Mongam Theerdhu Samadev turned the table to finish first and second with 4:36.39 and 4:36.44 respectively.

The Women's 200m Backstroke saw Odisha's Pratyasa Ray lead in the first 50m but Bengal's Soubrity Mondal turned on the after burners to snatch the lead and held it for the rest of the race to finish first with 2:21.76 and Pratyasa finished second with 2:24.29.

In the Men's 200m Backstroke, Tamil Nadu's Nithik Nathella and Maharashtra's Rishabh Anupam Das went neck to neck, Rishabh began pulling ahead halfway through the race but in the last 50m sprint Nithik overtook Rishabh and claimed first place, clocking 2:03.47. While Rishabh finished second at 2:04.03.

Srihari Natraj shared his experience saying, "It was a great meet, coming back from the Olympics, it was a great chance to compete with friends. Karnataka put on a great show and retained the title again, I'm sure they would've won without me."

/IANS