Five more new South Asian jI records were setup on the second

day of the second

South Asian Swimming (SASl championships at the National Swimming Complex at Mirpur yesterday, reports BSS.

The records were set up in 1500m freestyle. 100m backstroke. 50m freestyle. 200m butterfly and 4X200m freestyle relay.

The inaugural day was featured also with five records.

Indian ace-swimmer Sebastian Xavier retained his title as* the fastest swimmer of South Asia when he bagged the gold of the 50m freestyle with a record lime of 24.37 seconds. Compatriot IC Raju took Ihe silver clocking 25.08 seconds while hosts Ripon got the bronze with a lime of 25.54 seconds.

The Indian short-distance swimmer improved his previous 1992 record (24.44 seconds) in Calcutta by 0.07 seconds. Xavier, however, recorded his best timing in the event when he swam the distance in 23.11 seconds in the last year's Asia-Pacific swimming meet in New Delhi.

Indian coach Kashinath Roy . said, Xavier failed to put up his best as he could not join the training camp in time due to graduation examinations.

India maintained their absolute dominance in the poo) and secured all the six gold of the second day to take their tally to nine gold, four silver and one bronze.

Pakistan, who won four more silver yesterday, are in the second position with one gold, six sliver and one bronze followed by Bangladesh with one gold, one silver and nine bronze.

Promising Indian swimmer Abhijit displayed a superb per

formance yesterday snatching three individual gold. He grabbed his favourite 1500m freestyle gold with a record time of 16 minutes 58.58 seconds bettering his previous 1992 record of 17 minutes 11.82 seconds In Calcutta.

The silver and bronze of the event went to Kamal Salman Masud of Pakistan and Asaduzzaman of Bangladesh, who clocked 17 minutes 18.86 seconds and 18 minutes 49.83 seconds respectively.

Abhijit earned his second gold In the 400m Individual medley clocking five minutes 4.01 seconds. Bangladesh's Mahbubur Rahman, who was chasing Abhijit In the first two laps, surprisingly fell behind the only other Pakistani participant Mohammad Taz to deprive the hosts of a silver. Mahbub clocked five minutes 18.54 seconds to get the bronze

Abhijit won his third gold as a member of the Indian quartet in 4X200m freestyle relay. The Indian team set up a new SAS record In the event clocking 8 minutes 27.97 seconds. Pakistan and Bangladesh got the sliver and bronze respectively.

India Suresh Kumar bettered the South Asian and SAF Games record in 200m butterfly with 2 minutes 10.52 seconds.

The SAF Games record was 2 minutes 11.98 seconds and the South Asian record in the event was 2 minutes 13.04 seconds.

Kamal Salman Masud of Pakistan and Din Amin of the locals took the silver and bronze with 2 minutes 14.28 seconds and 2 minutes 19.30 seconds respectively.

Suresh also won the gold in the 100m butterfly Wednesday

Indian Bhanu Sachdeva. who won the 200m backstroke gold Wednesday, also bagged

the gold in the 100m back-stroke yesterday with a time of 1 minute 2.06 seconds establishing a new South Asian record. His compatriot Raja Ram Tokas got the silver with 1 minute 4.70 seconds while Arshad Mahmood of Pakistan took the bronze with 1 minute 5.23 seconds.

Dhaka City Corporation Mayor Mohammad Hanlf gave away the medals of 50 freestyle to the winners.

President of the International Swimming Federation Mustapha Larfaoui distributed the medals to the winners of 100m backstroke while Asian Amateur Swimming Federation president Hironoshin Furuhashi gave away the medals to the winners of 1500m freestyle.

MEDAL TABLE

C GEE

India 9 4 1

Pakistan 1 6 1

Bangladesh 1 1 9

Meanwhile. India won both the gold in the diving competition of the meet.

Umesh Prasad bagged the gold In the 5m platform at the Naval headquarters' swimming pool In the city yesterday. He scored the highest 385.25 points.

Sri Lankan Mohinda Liyan age and India's Rajnarayan Singh got the silver and bronze scoring 371.03 and 358.70 points respectively.

India, won the other gold. 3m spring board diving event Wednesday

Medals (able of diving events In the South Asian swimming championships tabulating as countries, golds, silvers and bronzes

MEDAL TABLE

C G S B

India 2 I I

Sri Lanka 0 1 I

Bangladesh 0 0 0