*Total five medals earned*
Panaji :- Maharashtra’s Virdhawal Khade and Palak Joshi celebrated a ‘double bang’ in swimming by winning their second gold medal each. With these two gold medals, Maharashtra earned a total of five medals, two silver and one bronze.
Olympian Virdhawal won the 50m backstroke race in a record time of 24.60 seconds, breaking his own record of 24.73 seconds in 2015. On Wednesday, he won the 50m freestyle race here to become the fastest swimmer. Mihir Ambre, who won the bronze medal in the same event, followed Veerdhawal to win the silver medal by completing the 50m backstroke race in 24.67 seconds.
Maharashtra’s Rishabh Das clocked 57.37 seconds to win silver in men’s 100m backstroke.
Maharashtra’s Rishabh Das clocked 57.37 seconds to win silver in men’s 100m butterfly. Olympian Srihari Natarajan (55.59 seconds) won the gold medal in this race.
Maharashtra’s Palak Joshi won gold in women’s 100m race. She covered this distance in one minute, 05.29 seconds. Earlier, she had also won the 200m backstroke title in this event. In the 50 meters butterfly race, however, Rijuta Khade had to settle for a bronze medal. She covered this distance in 28.38 seconds. She had earlier won the 50m freestyle event in the event.
*Both Maharashtra teams enter semifinals in water polo*
Maharashtra players continued their winning streak in both the men’s and women’s groups to advance to the semi-finals of the National Games in water polo.
In the men’s group, Maharashtra beat Kerala 6-4 after a tight fight. Gaurav Mahajani and Piyush Suryavanshi have performed consistently in the matches played by the Maharashtra team so far.Kerala team scored two goals in the last innings to create interest in the match but Maharashtra maintained the lead till the end and won the match. Maharashtra will face West Bengal in the semi-final. In the women’s group, Maharashtra registered a resounding victory over Karnataka 15-7. Rajshree Gugle and Pooja Kumbare played an important role for the Maharashtra team. Maharashtra will face Kerala in the semi-final. The semi-final matches of both the groups will be played on Friday.
