Kathmandu, September 18

Sirish Gurung and Tisa Shakya won three gold medals each as five national records were shattered on the opening day of the NSA Cup Swimming Championship here at the International Sports Complex pool today.

Olympian Gurung from Tribhuvan Army Club claimed the 100m freestyle with new national record and also bagged gold medals in 200m Individual Medley and 200m backstroke events.

Gurung bettered his own mark by seven milliseconds in 100m freestyle event. He completed the distance in 57.69 seconds to beat his own mark of 57.76 set during the Rio Olympic Games last year. Fellow TAC swimmer Anubhav Subba came second in 59.87 seconds, while Nepal APF Club’s Devesh Manandhar (01:00.06) came third.

Gurung won the 200m IM gold with a timing of two minutes and 37.78 seconds, while Subba came second in 2:38.13 and Urgen Sherpa of Lincoln was third in 2:50.81. Gurung then added third gold of the day when he won the 200m backstroke event in 2:47.57. Fellow TAC swimmer Manoj Bhakti (2:53.37) and Dilip Thapa Magar (3:03.93) came second and third respectively.

Likewise, Tisa Shakya of Lincoln School bettered her own mark in 100m breaststroke on her way to winning the gold medal in one minute and 25.82 seconds. She had set the national record of 1:26.01 in the sixth FINA Junior Championship in Indianapolis earlier this year. Duana Lama of John Dewey School came second in 1:28.14 and Upasti Maharjan of Premier International School was third in 1:30.63.

Shakya also won the 200m freestyle gold in 2:29.85 leaving behind Lama (2:32.43) and Sameera Shova Thapa (2:42.50) of Nisarga Batika. Shakya also finished first in 100m freestyle with the timing of 1:07.37, while Thapa came second in 1:10.08 and Ishina Bharati of Lincoln was third in 1:11.19. Shakya added two more gold medals in the age-group events. She won the U-14 girls’ 50m fly and 50m breaststroke events.

Shuvam Shrestha of APF broke the national record in 50m breaststroke event winning gold in 32.19 seconds, bettering his own mark of 32.40 set during the 20th National Games earlier this year. Kiran Karki (33.66) and Bedagya Raj Joshi (36.37) were second and third respectively.

Alexender G Shah of Lincoln School was another swimmer to set new mark on the opening day. Shah completed the 100m backstroke in 1:10.93 breaking the Sirish Gurung’s mark of 1:12. Dane Tifawy of Lincoln was second in 1:17.56 and Nitesh Manandhar of APF came third in 1:18.56.

Anubhav Subba of TAC also bettered his mark in 50m fly by one millisecond. He won the gold medal in 28.25 seconds improving on his own record of 28.26 set during the 17th FINA World Championship in Budapest earlier this year. Devesh Manandhar of TAC came second on 28.60 and Urgen Sherpa of Lincoln was third in 30.97 seconds.

Other gold medal winners in open section included Suresh Rai of TAC (200m fly) and Lincoln School duo Oshina Bharati (100m back) and Ayushma Tuladhar (50m fly).