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The National Games have witnessed incredible performances from athletes over the past week. New records were set and the old guard showed why they were still a force to reckon with. Here are 5 athletes who shone the brightest over the last seven days.
#5 Ankita Raina
India No. 1 Ankita Raina made a clean sweep of gold medals in women’s tennis events at the National Games. Raina made light work of her opponents on her way to the finals of singles competition. She faced the No. 2 seed Prarthana Thombare in the final. The first set saw a surprisingly large number of service breaks before Raina took it 7-5. Thombare led 3-0 in the second set, but Raina came storming back to win six games in a row.
The Gujarat girl teamed up with Eetee Maheta to dismiss Telangana’s Nidhi Chilumula and Sowjanya Bavisetti 6-2, 6-1 in the finals. It was triple delight for the No. 1 seed as she won team gold as well.
#4 Vijay Kumar
One of the good things to happen at the National Games from a fans’ perspective is the participation of top shooters in the event. Vijay Kumar stamped his class once again with a commanding performance pocketing 5 gold medals and a bronze.
His gold hunt started after notching up a score of 590 in the 25 m Rapid fire pistol event. The Services are at the top of the medal tally thanks to a collective effort by shooters. Kumar teamed up with Gurpreet Singh and Omkar Singh to bag gold in the 25m standard pistol men's team event.
Singh edged out Kumar in the 25 m Standard pistol event with a score of 572. The London Olympics silver medallist also clinched gold in 25 m center fire pistol, 25 m Rapid fire pistol team and 25 m center fire pistol team events.
#3 Aakanksha Vora
Aakanksha Vora emerged as the most successful female swimmer with five golds and one silver medal. She completed the 400 m freestyle event with a timing of 4:32.5 seconds, a good 3 seconds clear of Karnataka’s Malakika. Vora ran away with the 800 m freestyle gold stream rolling her competition with an impressive timing of 9:15.3 seconds. Malakika came second yet again almost nine seconds behind Vora.
The 16-year old also played an important role in ensuring Maharashtra won gold in 4 X 100 m relay freestyle and 4 X 200 m relay freestyle events.
Vora destroyed her opposition in the 1500 m freestyle event with a finish in 17:42.44 seconds. Saachi and Shreyasi came second and third respectively three minutes after Vora had tasted victory.
#2 Dipa Karmakar
Dipa Karmakar continued her good run in the National Games by clinching five gold medals in individual all-round, table vault, balancing beam, uneven parallel bars and floor exercises. The Commonwealth Games gold medallist was at her gracious best as she dismissed her opposition in fine style.
Dipa accumulated 52.100 points in all.
#1 Sajan Prakash
Sajan Prakash set the pool ablaze with a total haul of 8 medals which included 6 gold and 2 silver. The 21-year old broke meet records in five events – 400 m, 800 m, 1500 m, 100 m and 200 m butterfly categories. Prakash finished 400 m in 3 minutes, 57.16 seconds well ahead of Saurabh Sangvekar and Anand. This is a huge boost for the young swimmer who has struggled to get resources for his training over the years.
With a meagre salary of 16,000 per month and infrastructure that isn’t world class, Prakash finds his hard to keep his passion running against these odds. The Kerala lad also qualified for the World Championships to be held in Kazan in July.
Sajan felt a lot of work remains to be done to compete with best swimmers on the planet.
He said, "This is just a beginning and after that if you want to go ahead you need to do a lot of training which has to be with world class swimmers as it makes a lot of difference."
