Maharashtra swimmers Virdhawal Khade and his wife Rujuta Khade blazed their way to glory as they set New Meet Record at the 37th National Games Goa 2023 on Tuesday.
Olympian Virdhawal broke his own previous record in the 50M Freestyle with an astonishing time of 22.82 seconds.
3-time national champion Rujuta, who recovered from a back injury earlier this year, set a new National Games record with an incredible time of 26.42sec in the women’s 50M Freestyle event.
Former Goa swimmer Shoan Ganguly, who won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Youth Games earlier this year, set a blazing new National Games record in the 400M Medley, clocking an incredible time of 4:28.09 to clinch the gold medal for Karnataka.
Tamil Nadu’s Nithik Nathella also left his mark at the 37th National Games by setting a new National Games record in the 200M Backstroke with a time of 2:03.32.
Maharashtra continued their dominance in the games increasing their total tally to 123 medals with 52 Gold, 35 Silver and 36 Bronze.
Services Sports Control Board who have 19 gold medals leaped ahead of Haryana in the medal tally by securing one gold more than Haryana who ended the day on 18 golds.
The athletics competitions were put on hold due to heavy rainfall after the completion of 4×100 M Women’s relay. Asian Games medallist, Jyothi Yarraji anchored Andhra Pradesh to gold ahead of Kerala and Karnataka, who won silver and bronze respectively.
After the resumption of the competition, Asian Games Silver medallist, Tejaswin Shankar representing Delhi clinched the gold medal in Decathlon with a new National Games record completing the two-day event with a total of 7199 points. Rohit Roman of SSCB won the silver with 6794 points while N. Thowfeeq of Kerala won the bronze with 6755 points.
Tamil Nadu clinched the gold in the 4×100 M Men’s relay with a timing of 40.05 s ahead of Odisha who won the silver and Kerala who won the bronze.
In women’s long jump competition, Asian Games Hangzhou silver-medallist Ancy Sojan E of Kerala won the gold medal with a jump of 6.53m. Her state-mate Nayana James, who had won gold medal last year in Gujarat, finished a close second with 6.52m. Moumita Mondal (WB) finished third with 6.41m effort.
Making it a 1-2 finish for Haryana, Shilpa Rani bagged the gold medal in women’s javelin throw competition with her best effort being 54.82m; while Priyanka Singh registered her best throw at 53.75m. Andhra’s Rashmi K Shetty clinched the bronze medal with 52.55m effort.
In Taekwondo at the Ponda Multipurpose Indoor Stadium, Maharashtra and Gujarat won two gold medals each out of the five which were decided. SSCB secured the other gold.
At Tilak Maidan in Vasco, West Bengal and Manipur booked their places in women’s football semi-finals from Pool A. West Bengal edged out Jharkhand 3-2 in the final group match while Manipur got the better of Tamil Nadu 2-0 to confirm their places in the semis.
In men’s football at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Fatorda – Maharashtra held last edition’s silver medallists Kerala to a 2-2 draw while Manipur edged past Santhosh Trophy runners up Meghalaya 2-1 in Pool A.
