Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s female swimmers scripted history by winning the first-ever medal for the state in Senior National championships with a bronze in 4x200m freestyle relay.
Pratyasa Ray made it a double delight for Odisha and herself, as she became the state’s first-ever Senior Nationals individual medal winner.
Pratyasa bagged a silver in 100m backstroke later on Day 1 of the 77th Senior National Aquatic Championships at Mangaluru’s International Swimming Complex.
Pratyasa, the most-decorated swimmer of Odisha, was part of the 4x200m freestyle team that won bronze earlier on Tuesday. Shristi Upadhyaya, Divyanka Divyajyoti Pradhan and Sonia Patel were other members of the Odisha quartet that finished third in the 4x200m freestyle relay final with a time of 9:03.53. Karnataka (8:54.85) and Maharashtra (9:01.15) claimed the gold and silver respectively.
Bhubaneswar swimmer Pratyasa won the 100m backstroke silver, clocking 1:05.82. Soubrity Monda (Bengal) and Rujuta Prasad Rajadnya (Maharashtra) secured the gold and bronze with timings of 1:05.51 and 1:06.30, respectively.
Apart from winning two medals, three more Odisha women swimmers qualified for the finals in their respective events. Shristi and Sonia finished fifth and seventh in women’s 50m butterfly final with timings of 29.23 and 29.69, respectively.
Divyanka Divyajyoti Pradhan finished fifth in women’s 200m breaststroke final with a time of 2:44.20. All four medal winners are trainees of the Odisha-JSW Swimming High Performance Centre at Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar.
Odisha State Swimming Association (TOSSA) president Pradip Kumar Padhee described the achievement of the four women swimmers as historic.
“TOSSA is thankful to the Odisha government for developing top-class swimming infrastructure across the State and JSW Group for running the HPC in Bhubaneswar. We are also grateful to HPC Head Coach Sandeep Sejwal and Technical Director Douglas Eagar,” said Padhee.
Pratyasa’s parents Rajat Kumar Ray and Charushree Behura also showered praise on the medal winners, the state government, HPC, coaches and TOSSA for the glorious achievements.
“We feel proud as parents of Pratyasa. Today’s Senior National achievements are results of collective efforts of our hard-working swimmers, their coaches, the State Government, JSW Group and the State association,” said Pratyasa’s father Rajat from Mangaluru.
