PANAJI
It was a disappointing performance by Goan swimmers as they failed to win even a single medal at the ongoing 38th National Games in Uttarakhand.
None of the seven-member Goan swimming contingent comprising of Aryan Sharma, Rahul Patil, Aahil Sheikh, Dwayne Clemente, Shrungi Bandekar, Alaqua Brito and Purna Shikerkar finished on the podium. The swimming event concluded on Tuesday.
During last National Games held in Goa in 2023, the state had won 6 medals in swimming (3 silver and 3 bronze) with Sanjana Prabhugaonker (2 silver and 2 bronze) and Shrungi Bandekar (1 silver and 1 bronze) contributing to the medal tally.
The absence of Sanjana Prabhugaonker who had won four medals during the Goa National Games was truly felt this time around.
Shrungi Bandekar, who trains in Bengaluru, narrowly missed out on a medal at Uttarakhand. It was so near yet so far for Shrungi as she finished fourth in women's 200m individual medley and 400m individual medley with a timing of 2 minutes 29.96 seconds and 5 minutes 24.45 seconds respectively.
In fact, these timings were much slower than what she had clocked during the 2023 National Games in Goa to win a silver (200m individual medley) in 2:26.90 minutes and a bronze (400m individual medley) in 5:13.69 minutes. Had Shrungi clocked those timings that she had clocked in Goa, she would have been on the podium.Shrungi had also won a bronze in 200m individual medley during 2022 National Games in Gujarat.
Apart from these two events, Shrungi narrowly missed to qualify for the finals in women's 200m backstroke and 200m freestyle as she finished ninth and tenth respectively in the heats with a timing of 2:36.91 and 2:19.93. Only the top-8 finishers in the heats qualify for the finals. In women’s 100m backstroke, Shrungi was unable to start the race.
Other than Shrungi, it was overall a very poor performance put up by the rest of the Goan swimming squad. Their timings left much to be desired even though they had participated in multiple events. It looked like as if they had gone to the National Games just to fill up the numbers. Apart from Shrungi, none of them came even remotely close of qualifying for the finals.
Aryan Sharma (men's 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle), Dwayne Clemente (men's 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 200m backstroke, 200m individual medley), Rahul Patil (men's 50m butterfly, 100m butterfly, 200m individual medley), Aahil Sheikh (men's 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 800m freestyle) and Purna Shikerkar (women's 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle, 1500m freestyle), all of them ended among the bottom half of the participants who had finished the event. In women's 100m freestyle, Alaqua Britto did not start the race.
