Karnataka reasserted their overall supremacy winning the 58th Senior National Aquatic Championships for third consecutive year in New Delhi on Sunday.
The defending champions won a total of 305 points and were followed by Police with 293 points. The runners-up had a better score in the men's championship as compared to the champions but lost a lot of ground in the women's category to be relegated to the second spot.
The men swimmers erased as many as 16 records, including five national marks, while the women category -- which appeared depleted in the absence of Nisha Millet, Ambica Iyenger and V Sivaranjani -- could manage only three new marks during the six-day event at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerji Swimming Pool Complex in New Delhi.
The Police team topped the medals tally with 17 gold, five silver and 11 bronze while Karnataka returned with a haul of 14-14-11 and Tamil Nadu was a distant third with three gold and one bronze.
Karnataka coach Nisar Amin said he was satisfied with his team's performance but added that absence of some top swimmers including Rahul Batra, Nisha, Sivaranjani and Ambica -- who are competing in the World Championships after taking part only in the opening day events -- showed on the medal tally.
"I am happy with the team's performance but we felt the absence of some of our top players," he said.
Karnataka's Olympian swimmer Shikha Tandon won all her events and was adjudged the 'best swimmer' in women and Arjun Muralidharan of Police, with three gold and two records to his credit, was the best among the men.
The championships, however, found a new talent in Puneet Rana of Punjab, who concluded the event with his third national record in men's 200m breaststroke.
Puneet clocked 2 minutes 22.70 secs for the gold while previous record holder Deepak Kumar of Police won the silver with the 2:30.43 timing.
In men's 200 m butterfly stroke, Arjun Muralidharan clocked 2:05.87 for the new meet record and gold while the other two medal winners -- Shireesh Reddy of Police and Rehan Poncha of Karnataka -- also had their timings inside the previous best mark.
Star swimmer Poncha, who had missed the last three editions, secured two gold, two silver and a bronze and a gold in the relay event.
Delhi girl Richa Mishra won four gold medals from five events despite coming from a prolonged illness and only a fortnight's training before the event.
Viraj Patil of Maharashtra was the best diver in the men's category collecting 21 points after winning all the three -- one metre springboard, three metre springboard and the highboard -- event.
Tanya Ganguly of Railways took the honour in the women's section collecting 14 points.
Maharashtra diving team was best in men and Railways in women.
In water polo, SSCB and Kerala were the men's and women's champions respectively. S Jayan was the best men's player while Biji Verghese was the best women's player.
Results:
Men:
100m Freestyle - T A Sujith (SSCB, 53.59 secs), Aniketh D'Souza (Kar, 54.18), Amar Muralidharan (Pol, 54.18 secs)
200m Breaststroke - Puneet Rana (Pun, 22.70 secs), Deepak K Singh (Pol, 2:30.43), B Vinay (Pol, 2:31.75 secs)
200m Butterfly - Arjun Muralidharan (Pol, 2:05.87 secs), Shireesh Reddy (Pol, 2:07.48 secs), Rehan Poncha (Kar, 2:07.62 secs)
Women:
100m Freestyle - Shikha Tandon (Kar, 59.37 secs), Richa Mishra (Pol, 1:01.54 secs), Rishu Mehra (Pol, 1:02.92 secs)
200m Butterfly - Richa (Pol, 2:24.64 secs), Pooja Alva (2:33.04 secs), Pooja Ghorpade (Mah, 2:35.94 secs)
4x100 Medley Relay - Karnataka (4:50.92 secs), Police (5:00.10 secs), Bengal (5:05.09).
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