Bhubaneswar: Local favourite Pratyasa Ray bagged a bronze medal with a timing of 2:24.77 sec in the women’s 200m backstroke event of the 78th Senior National Aquatic Championship at the Indoor Aquatic Centre, Kalinga Stadium here on Wednesday. The gold and silver medals were won by Vihitha Narayana and Naisha both from Karnataka clocking 2:21.85 and 2:22.95 sec respectively.
Odisha women swimmers grabbed a silver medal in the 4X100m Medley events on Tuesday. Pratyasa Ray, Mannata Mishra, Shrishti Upadhyay, Divyanka Divyajyoti Pradhan from Odisha won the silver medal with 4:27.10 sec in the women’s 4X100m Medley event. Karnataka and Bengal won gold and bronze medals clocking 4:25.92 and 4:29.86 seconds respectively.
On the inaugural day, Odisha’s ace swimming sensation Shristi Upadhaya made the State proud by winning a gold medal in the women 100m butterfly category with an impressive time of 1:03.50 minutes and she crossed pass Olympian Dhinidhi Desinghu, who claimed the bronze medal with 1:03.52 sec.
Talking about the Odisha swimmer’s development the Swimming Federation of India General Secretary Monal Chokshi expressed “Odisha’s women swimmers are benefiting from enhanced international standard swimming infrastructure at Kalinga Stadium, training facilities, international exposure, and dedicated coaching, which is reflected in their rapidly improving timings”.
The Odisha Government set up JSW Swimming High Performance Centre (HPC) that helps a lot to groom the local talents. “In comparison to Odisha’s boys the girls are producing better results in the national platform. In my opinion the local young girls are more focused about their training while the boys are less active. More than four years has passed, its a high time for Odisha boys to grow up and show their talents at the national platform. I am surprised that with the same facilities and under the guidance of HPC Coaches, If the girls can win national medals why not the boys” added Chokshi.
