Thrissur, Sept 13: T A Sujith (services) and Tamil Nadu's Saba Sait set meet records in the 200 m freestyle and 50 m breast stroke (heats) respectively on the fourth day of the 56th senior National Aquatic Championship here today which saw Karnataka leading overall with 165 points. Sujith, a junior commissioned officer with Meg at Bangalore, erased the record with a time of 1:58.58 seconds. The old record stood in the name of Hakimuddin of police at 1:58.70 seconds set in 1998.

"I was confident of winning the medal," the 23-year-old Sujith said. He is also the winner of the 'fastest swimmer title' clinching the 50 m freestyle event two days back. He has so far won three individual gold and two in the relays. For 16-year-old Saba Sait, who set a new meet record in the heats, the day proved to be a mixed one as she could not repeat the same performance in the finals and had to be content with the silver clocking 37.34s while the gold was bagged by debutant Mrudula (Karnataka) with a time of 37.21s. Madhura Patil took the bronze timing 37.73s.

Saba had eclipsed the previous record of 37.12s by Zeba Wadia of Maharashtra set in 1999, clocking 37.05 seconds.

Bureau Report