Bhubaneswar, Jul 16 (IANS): Top billed Ridhima Veerendra Kumar of Karnataka created a new meet record in the 100m backstroke event for Group 1 Girls on day one of the prestigious 48th Junior National Aquatic Championships which began at the Biju Patnaik Swimming Pool, Kalinga Stadium here on Saturday.

The young star from Bengaluru smashed Maana Patel's record of 1:05.00, clocked in 2015. Ridhima touched the pads on 1:04.96 to clinch the gold and create a new meet record in the event. She beat Sanjana Prabhugaonkar (1:07.09) and statemate Nina Venkatesh (1:07.32) to win the gold.

In the 100m backstroke for Group II Boys, Suhas Preetha M of Telangana smashed the record with a sensational time of 1:01.29 seconds. He beat Karnataka's Ishan Mehra by a close margin. Mehra timed 1:01.71 seconds. Haryana's Krish Jain took home the bronze.

In another event, Apeksha Fernandes of Maharashtra created a new meet record in the 100m breaststroke for Group I Girls. She clocked 1:12.83 seconds to beat Karnataka's Saanvi S Rao (1:16.81) and S Lakshya (1:17.58).

Hashika Ramachandra of Karnataka set a new meet record in the 200m Freestyle for Girls' Group III, clocking 2:05.65. She improved on the old mark of 2:10.81 set by Bhavya Sachdeva at Rajkot in 2019. Dhinidhi Desinghu of Karnataka finished second while Deepti Tilak of Maharashtra bagged bronze.

Jashua Thomas of Tamil Nadu won the Group I Boys' 100m breaststroke gold, clocking 1:06.82. Arjunveer Gupta of Maharashtra won silver in 1:07.02 while Vansh Pannu of Haryana bagged bronze in 1:07.06.