Nat Games: Richa bags two more gold

Swimmers smashed four meet records, as Richa Mishra added two more gold medals on day two of the competition at the 34th National Games in Ranchi, on Monday.

Sandeep Sejwal, A P Gagan, Richa and Karnataka's 4x100m men's relay team set the four meet records, as Karnataka and Delhi picked two gold and two silver each.

The day at the Veer Budhu Bhagat Aquatic Stadium in Mega Sports Complex belonged to 27-year-old Delhi girl Richa, who bagged two more gold from as many events to make it four in her kitty.

Competing in all the 17 individual events, Richa had a confident start in the day when she led all the way to clinch the 800m freestyle with a record timing of 09.24:45s, thus shattering the previous Games record, held by Surabhi Tipre (09.25:30s).

Maharashtra had a silver-bronze finish when Aarti Ghorpade (09.48:71) finished ahead of Rujuta Bhatt (09.51:17).

Richa swam 02.49:58s in the 200m breaststroke en route to her second gold, while Poorva Shetye of Maharashtra (02.52:31) and Tamil Nadu's A V Jayaveena (02.53:09) took the silver and bronze respectively.

The Delhi girl was challenged by Poorva but maintained her lead in both the laps for her fourth gold.

Representing Madhya Pradesh, international swimmer Sejwal shattered the Games record by a big margin in the 200m breaststroke.

Sejwal clocked 02.17:53s to better his previous record of 02.26:80.

Puneet Rana of Haryana clinched the silver with a timing of 02.24:42s that itself was better than the previous meet record. Punjab clinched a bronze courtesy Jashandeep Singh with a timing of 02.28:28s.

Promising Karnataka youngster Gagan stunned national record holder Mandar Divase with a superlative performance in the first event of the day when the 19-year-old showed tremendous grit and determination to claim the 1500m freestyle gold with a record timing.

Gagan clocked 16.15:54s en route to the gold medal, bettering the four-year-old record in the name of Rohit Havaldar (16.24:54). Divase of Maharashtra (16.41:07) and Delhi's Merwyn Chen (16.50:24) settled for silver and bronze respectively.

Himanshu Tiwari of Uttar Pradesh won high board diving with 260.85 points while Keshav Shinde of Maharashtra (252.45) and Services' Kartik Shaw (235.90) settled for silver and bronze respectively.

The Karnataka quartet of Ashwin Menon, Aditya Roshan, Arjun JP and Rohit Havaldar set the fourth record of the day when they clocked 04.02:21 en route to gold in 4x100m medley relay.

Services (04.05:25) and Maharashtra (04.10:83) bagged the silver and bronze respectively.

Maharashtra women's team of Aarti Ghorpade, Poorva Shetye, Rujuta Bhatt and Aditi Dhumatkar clinched the 4x100m medley relay in 04.43:09. Tamil Nadu (04.51:90) and Karnataka (04.59:06) won silver and bronze respectively.