The Hindu : Sport / Swimming : Khade expected to sizzle

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Wednesday, Jul 04, 2007
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Sport - Swimming

Khade expected to sizzle

Principal Correspondent

BHOPAL: Virdhawal Khade, the lone Indian swimmer to have so far qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, will be the biggest draw at the 34th Junior National aquatic championship that opens at the Prakash Taran Pushkar here on Wednesday.

Freestyle expert Khade will be Maharashtra’s mainstay against an otherwise rampaging Karnataka swimmers, in the two age groups that form the Junior Nationals. Khade will be having a go at eight titles including three relay events.

“More than winning gold medals, we are focusing on giving better timings as trials for the Asian age-group championship to be held in Jakarta will also be held simultaneously,” said the Maharashtra coach Gokul Kamath.

Though Karnataka is expected to dominate overall, Maharashtra will be the tough contenders with Khade spearheading the challenge. “We are expecting quite a few records here as Khade has shown immense progress since he made that tremendous effort in the World championship in Melbourne,” said Kamath.

Khade clocked 1:52.41s in the 200m freestyle event at the World championship to set a new national record, bettering his own timing by 0.05 seconds.

Flat platforms

The dampener for the records may probably come from the flat platforms at the swimming pool here. The FINA rules stipulates slight slope for launch pads, but the pool built here in 1978 have flat tile platforms that forced most of the swimmers to practice their starts before timing their distances.

Besides Khade, Maharashtra — which won the sub-junior Nationals in Goa last month — will depend on Aditya Sangvekar, Aarti Ghorpade, Lekha Kamath and Surbhi Tipre.

But Karnataka is here in strength with Aaron D’Souza, Sandeep, Ashwin Menon, Siddhant and Akshay Krishna leading the challenge in the boys’ section. Pooja Alva, National Games record holder in 200m butterfly stroke, Shipra M., Madhavi Giri and Neeraja B., will be the girls to watch out for.

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