Maana Patel and Kenisha Gupta break National Records at Belgrade Trophy event

Maana Patel and Kenisha Gupta break National Records at Belgrade Trophy event

Maana Patel and Kenisha Gupta

Indian swimmers have been in their top form in the ongoing Belgrade Trophy Swimming Championships being held in the Serbian capital. On 20th June, Maana Patel and Kenisha Gupta went on to break national records in 100m backstroke and 100m freestyle respectively.

Maana Patel rode on a quick first 50m to hold off Serbian Jana Markovic’s challenge and forced a dead heat for the first place in the women’s 100 backstroke. The 21-year-old Indian swimmer shattered her own national record of 1:04:21 set at the Asian Age Group Championships in 2015 with her incredible performance of 1:03:77 on Sunday.

Kenisha Gupta broke the national record in women’s 100m freestyle with her timing of 57.39 seconds. The teenager is on a roll as the Belgrade Trophy proved to be her third successive meet where she has improved her time. The Mumbai swimmer finished fifth in the race.

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A Powerful Comeback

Maana Patel and Kenisha Gupta’s astounding performance at the Belgrade Trophy had much to prove.

Patel marked her thundering comeback from not just injuries and uncertainty but also shut down concerns that she had not shown improvements.

It is not known if the Indian swimmers were aware that FINA had taken off the times clocked in Tashkent from the Olympic qualifications list.  FINA has left the times on the individual pages of some athletes, including the dubious times of a couple of Uzbek swimmers who were credited with securing Olympic Qualifying Times (A cut).

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