In another thrilling race of the day, Sambhavv R of Karnataka won the second gold medal in his campaign when he edged past Bikram Changmai of Assam in the 100m butterfly for group I boys.Sambhavv clocked 55.87 seconds to finish ahead of Changmai who clocked 55.92 and third place went to Harsh Saroha of Haryana who touched pads at 55.98. Though Sambhavv was mighty pleased with the effort, he missed the national record of 55.65 held by Maharashtra's Mihir Ambre created in 2017. "It feels good to win another gold medal, I knew it would be a very close race but my coach Jairajan had prepared me mentally for the challenge. I knew I had to swim faster in the second 50m and that's what I did," stated an elated Sambhavv.Assam's Astha Choudhary, on the other hand, ensured she didn't miss her target of breaking the national record in the 100m butterfly for group I girls as she clocked 1:02.71 seconds to better her effort in the heats where she clocked 1:03.58 secs to erase Damini Gowda's record of 1:04.66 secs created in 2016.She was given a tough fight by Maharashtra's Apeksha Fernendes (1:02.81) and Karnataka's Nina Venkatesh (1:03.78) all of whom went under the previous national record.Jas Singh of Karnataka, meanwhile, won his fourth individual gold medal in the 100m freestyle for group V boys. He had clinched gold in 100m breaststroke, 200m medley and 50m backstroke on day one. Today, he beat Monish Naidu P of Tamil Nadu Swimming Academy (TNSA) with a time of 1:09.47 while Naidu clocked 1:13.18 to take home the silver medal and S Someshwar clocked 1:13.72 to win bronze.
--IANS avn/cs
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