The young Indian women’s 4x200m freestyle relay rewrote the ‘Best Indian Time’ twice as it finished eighth at the Asian Games on Thursday. Teenagers Dhinidhi Desinghu (13), Vritti Agarwal (17), Hashika Ramachandra (15) and 20-year-old Shivangi Sarma first obliterated the ‘Best Indian time’ by swimming the heats in 8:39.64s.
The quartet then rewrote the record by clocking 8:37.58s for a last place finish in the final. The four women swimmers had bettered the 8:40.89s mark set by Hashika, Dhinidhi, Vihitha Nayana and Shirin at the nationals earlier this year. The Indian men’s 4x100m team comprising Srihari Nataraj, Tanish George Mathew and Vishal Grewal clocked 3:21.46 to finish a sixth in the final.
The quartet had swam the heats in 3:21.22s create a new ‘Best Indian Time’ but ran out of steam in the final. The previous record of 3:23.72s was set by Nataraj, Sajan Prakash, Virdhwal Khade and Anil Kumar Shylaja at the Asian Age Group Championships in Bengaluru in 2019. In swimming, a timing is considered a national meet record when it has been achieved at the National Aquatic Championships.
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Hence, the record timings clocked in other meets are called the ‘Best Indian Time’. Aryan Nehra and Kushagra Rawat finished seventh and eighth in the eight-man 800m freestyle final. Former medallist Virdhawal Khade was unable to progress to the final as did Shivangi Sarma.
Khade, who won the bronze in the 50m butterfly event in the 2010 edition, clocked 24.67s to finish 19th in the same event. Sarma, on the other hand, finished 18th in the women’s 50m freestyle event after she touched the pad at 26.92s.
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