India’s Youngest Paris Olympics Swimmer Dhinidhi Sets National Record At Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: Fresh from her outing in the Paris Olympics, 14-year-old Dhinidhi Desinghu of Karnataka rewrote the junior national record in Girls’ 50m Freestyle Group II on Day 3 of the 40th Sub-Junior and 50th Junior National Aquatics Championship at the Kalinga Stadium complex here on Thursday.

Dhinidhi, India’s youngest participant in the 2024 Olympics, bowed out of the Paris heats in the women’s 200m freestyle.

Eleven days later, young Dhinidhi clocked 26.89 seconds in 50m freestyle to erase her own record of 27.16.

Maharashtra’s Aditi Satish Hegde (27.98) finished second and Karnataka’s Charita Phanindranath (28.05) was third.

Two more meet records were sunk at the Kalinga Stadium Aquatics Centre.

Maharashtra’s Rishabh Anupam Das bettered the national mark in Boys’ 50m Backstroke Group I by clocking 26.19 secs. He obliterated two-time Olympian (Tokyo and Paris) Srihari Nataraj’s six-year-old record of 26.31.

Karnataka’s Rujula S was the third swimmer to create a national record as she finished the Girls’ 50m Freestyle Group I final in 26.91 secs. She thus bettered the previous mark of Paunjab’s Jasnoor Kaur (27.01), also set at Bhubaneswar, in August 2023.