Karnataka's girls continued to make waves as they established four new national marks and Nisha Millet scooped up her fifth gold in the 57th National Aquatics Championships in Kolkata on Sunday.
Karnataka's golden girls -- Nisha Millet, Shikha Tandon and V Sivaranjani -- warmed the pool, breaking three records on way to picking up gold medals in their respective events.
Karnataka's dominance extended to the 400m freestyle relay, where their quartet demolished the existing record before adding to their golden tally.
There were records galore at the Subhas Sarobar swimming pool on the fifth day as altogether seven new national marks were set.
In the men's section, V Arun of Tamil Nadu, M A Divase of Police Sports Control Board got their names in the record books in individual events, while the Services Sports Control Board swimmers created a new mark in 400m freestyle relay.
Millet, who made a memorable return to the pool after a five-year hiatus, established her third record of the meet by finishing the 1500m freestyle in 18:42.72 seconds to bag her fifth gold.
The Karnataka girl deleted the record set by state mate Ambica Iyengar (18:56.42s) last year on way to victory, ahead of Maharashtra girl Awani A Sawant (19:09.37s) and V Remya of Kerala (19:47.83s).
Tandon, maintaining her awesome form, equalled Millet in setting her third record of the meet.
Tandon first erased Sangeeta Rani's five-year old record of 31.51s in the 50m backstroke heat, by clocking 31.32s, and then won the gold in the final (31.44 s), leaving behind Karnataka's Reshma Millet (31.97s) and Kerala girl Sony Cyriac (32.09s).
V Sivaranjani, who created a new mark in 200m individual medley yesterday, grabbed her second gold in 200m breaststroke with a record time of 2:49.68s. The earlier record of 2:49.88s was held by Richa Sharma.
In the women's 400m relay, Shivaranjani and Tandon joined forces with Ambica Iyengar and Reshma Millet to set a new mark of 4:08.91s, obliterating the state's earlier record of 4:09.49s made in 1998.
A Divase rewrote the record books in the 800m freestyle, clocking 8:45.88s, to erase the old mark of teamate Kailash Nath (8:51,24s) which came into existence last year.
V Arun swam to glory in the 50m backstroke final, clocking 28.37 seconds, after winning the heat with a record timing of 28.17 seconds, paying scant respect to the six-year record of Kerala boy T K Senthil Kumar (28.36s).
In the 400m freestyle relay, SSCB's Vinay Sebastian, S Rajimon, J Rennichan and T A Sujith set a new record of 3:40.46s, bettering the military side's old mark of 3:42.55 seconds, created in 2000.
Karnataka, who were the overall champions in the last edition of the meet, seem to be marching ahead for a repeat performance as they culled another yellow metal in the men's cateogory, to take their golden tally to 16.
G B Sharath won the 1 meter springboard diving event for the southern state, earning 265.05 points.
Railway diver Mamoni Mondal, who created a sensation by bagging a double gold in the Asian age group championship at Macao recently, had little difficulty in grabbing the honours in women's 1 meter spring board, leaving the silver for arch-rival and teammate Taniya Ganguly.
It was sweet revenge for Mondal, who had lost the gold to Ganguly in 3 m springboard.
Mondal had finished first in the highboard event on the second day of the ongoing meet.
In men's waterpolo, Bengal outclassed PSCB 9-3 to finish third while Kerala and PSCB romped into the final in the eves' section.
The Kerala girls got past hosts Bengal 5-3 while PSCB outplayed Maharashtra 6-4 in semi final matches.
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