National aquatics | Benedicton, Dhinidhi and Rishabh break new floor

Benedicton broke the boys’s 50m butterfly file. | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT

B. Benedicton Rohit and Dhinidhi Desinghu stole the limelight by smashing the boys’s 50m butterfly and girls’s 100m freestyle meet information respectively within the National aquatics championships on the Kalinga Stadium Aquatic Centre right here on Wednesday.

After securing the 100m butterfly gold with a file, Benedicton broke the 50m file twice to claim his supremacy. He timed 24.13 within the heats to go beneath Virdhawal Khade’s six-year-old National file (24.19) earlier than decreasing the mark additional to 24.11 and declare the gold.

“My physique is drained after so many occasions, however it’s good to interrupt the file,” mentioned Benedicton, who achieved the World championships qualification.

Dhinidhi, the ladies’s 200m freestyle winner with a file, raced with authority to clock 56.78 for her second gold.

Dhinidhi smashed the ladies’s 100m freestyle meet file. | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT

“I missed the World championships and World junior championships qualifying marks. But I’m joyful to turn into the primary Indian girl to go beneath 57 seconds,” mentioned Dhinidhi, whose earlier greatest was 57.08.

National Games gold medallist Rishabh Das (2:00.65) beat Utkarsh Patil (2:00.98) within the final 5 metres to win the boys’s 200m backstroke and achieved Worlds ‘B’ qualification.

Rishabh Das bettered Srihari Nataraj’s National file and ‘India greatest’ time (2:02.29). | Photo Credit: BISWARANJAN ROUT

The prime two bettered Srihari Nataraj’s National file and ‘India greatest’ time (2:02.29).

Tamil Nadu (Jashua Thomas, Rohit, M.J. Praveen Kumar Praveen, Adhithya Dinesh) secured the boys’s 4x100m freestyle title with a file (3:26.26). Top-four finishers, together with Karnataka, Maharashtra and Railways, bettered the earlier file.

The outcomes (winners solely): Men: 800m freestyle: Aryan Nehra (Guj) 8:10.40; 200m backstroke: Rishabh Das (Mah) 2:00.65 (NMR, Old 2:02.29, Srihari Nataraj, 2019); 50m butterfly: B. Benedicton Rohit (TN) 24.11 (NMR, Old 24.13, 2025); 4x100m freestyle: Tamil Nadu 3:26.26 (NMR, Old 3:28.09, Karnataka).

Women: 100m freestyle: Dhinidhi Desinghu (Kar) 56.78 (NMR, Old 57.73, Shivangi Sarma, 2022); 200m backstroke: Vihitha Nayana Loganathan (Kar) 2:21.85; 50m butterfly: Nine Venkatesh (Kar) 28.25; 400m medley: Saanvi Deshwal (Mah) 5:03.85; 4x100m freestyle relay: Karnataka 4:03.18.

Published – June 25, 2025 09:03 pm IST