Guwahati: India scooped 10 medals, including four gold, from the pool to continue its dominance in swimming with Sandeep Sejwal picking his second yellow metal of the competitions at the 12th South Asian Games here today.
As many as five Games record were created out of the seven events today with the Indians accounting for three of them, including Sejwal’s.
India also suffered a rare reverse as ace swimmer Veerdhawal Khade was beaten in men’s 50m freestyle by the promising Sri Lankan teenager Matthew Abeysinghe, who continued with his fine performance by grabbing the third gold of the Games, the most by any swimmer so far.
Abeysinghe won in a Games record time of of 23:33 to emerge as the fastest swimmer of the SAG, eclipsing Khade’s 2010 Dhaka edition mark of 23.75 secs. Khade also bettered his own Dhaka mark with an effort of 23.54 secs but had to be content with the silver.
India collected four gold, five silver and a bronze from the pool, adding to the 11 medals won yesterday.
Sri Lanka took two gold, one silver and two bronze while Bangladesh bagged a gold and two bronze.
Sejwal, who yesterday won a gold in 200m breaststroke, added another yellow metal in 100m breastroke today in a new Games record time of 1:03.14, bettering his own mark of 1:05.01, which he had set in the 2010 edition.
Another Indian, Puneet Rana, took the silver in 1:03.80, while Kiran Jasinghe of Sri Lanka got the bronze.
In men’s 1500m freestyle, Kerala swimmer Sajan Prakash won his first international gold in 15:55.30 ahead of his compatriot Saurabh Sangvekar, who took the silver in 16:13.2. Mohd. Mahfizur Rahman of Bangladesh was third in 17:12.0.
In women’s 400m individual medley also, India finished one-two with Sayani Ghosh winning the gold in 05:14.51 and Shraddha Sudhir bagging the silver in 05:23.32. J Silva of Sri Lanka was third in 05:44.20.
M Arvind gave India the fourth gold by winning the men’s 200m backstroke event. Kavindra Nugaweh of Sri Lanka was second while Naveed Hussain of Paksitan was third.
In women’s 200m backstroke, Manna Patel took a silver in 2 minutes and 22.06 seconds behind Kimiko Raheem of Sri Lanka who won the gold in Games record time of 2:18.09.
The lone bronze winner for India was Chahat Arora in women’s 100m breastroke.