Poncha, Mishra make waves in the pool

Rehan Poncha of Karnataka and Richa Mishra of Delhi were adjudged the best swimmers at the 33rd National Games as the events came to a close at the Zakir Hussain Aquatics Complex today.

Rehan Poncha of Karnataka and Richa Mishra of Delhi were adjudged the best swimmers at the 33rd National Games as the events came to a close at the Zakir Hussain Aquatics Complex today.

Poncha, with eight new meet records, bagged nine gold, two silver and one bronze medals, while Richa, who broke one meet record and failed to take the gold despite bettering the meet records on two occasions, bagged eight gold, three silver and one bronze medal.

Rehan, who had entered in all 12 events in the pool, is chasing his big

Beijing dream.

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“I am looking at the Beijing Olympics,” a beaming Poncha declared after his rich haul.

“I have been working very hard for this. But my immediate focus is the World Championships at Melbourne in March, which will also be the Olympic qualifying event,” Poncha said.

Although Richa was “very happy” with her haul, her timings left a lot to be desired. She just managed to break one meet record and was way short of the established marks on a number of occasions.

While the men’s section saw marked improvement in almost all events where 17 records were created, the women’s section had just five new records to write home about.

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However, the heartening part was the emergence of a battery of potential champions from different quarters. Veerdhaval Khade, Surabhi Tipre and Lekha Kamat of Maharashtra, Rohit Havaldar and Pooja Alva of Karnataka, Sandeep Sejwal of Delhi and Fariha Zaman of Assam all gave the champions a run for their money.

But the most attractive swimmer of the meet title has to go to Khade. In fact, in all the short distance disciplines where the Maharashtrian was in direct contest with Poncha, it was Khade who came up triumphant. He is good and especially in sprint.Khade participated in the 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle; 50m and 100m butterfly and 200m individual meadley races in the Games and he won five of them with new games record.

“Those are my pet events. I am not cut out for long and middle distance swimming,” says Khade.

Shikha Tandon of Karnataka, who participated in eight disciplines, bagged six gold, a silver and a bronze and created two meet records.