Ayesha shatters national record

PANAJI, May 30: Goa’s Ayesha Madgavkar eclipsed a national record, emulating her elder sister Annika, by putting up a steller performance to win the gold in the girls’ Group II three spring board event on the second day of the 15th Sub-junior and 25th Junior diving National Championships in progress at Campal here.

The start of the dive saw the top seven divers fighting neck to neck with Mamoni Mandal of Bengal gaining the edge at the end of the first three dives and with Ayesha lying third at this stage. Ayesha, however, performed an excellent forward full twist to take the lead at the end of the fourth round, followed closely by Vidita Powle of Maharastra, Mamoni Andal of Bengal and Shruti Srivastava of MP.

The girls continued to dominate the events, with Shruti Shrivastava of MP winning the Girls Group II — high board event with the record breaking performance. The Girls Group II high board event saw a total of nine participants with a close battle being fought amongst the first eightparticipants.

Shruti, started off badly and lay in the 3rd position at the end of second round of diving at which stage Sai Sammant of Maharashtra, had the lead with Taniya Ganguli of West Bengal in the second place.