Diu, May 22 Maharashtra’s Diksha Yadav continued her exploits at the inaugural Khelo India Beach Games, sweeping both gold medals on offer in the Open Sea Swimming event. The 19-year-old from Maharashtra picked up the yellow metal in both 10km and the 5km events at Ghoghla Beach on Thursday morning. In the men’s 5km open swim for men, Karnataka’s Drupad Ramakrishna won gold.
Diksha, who has fallen in love with long-distance swimming, started playing when she was in class 10, training at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune. This is just her second year in open water swimming, having been inspired from the accomplished American swimmer Katie Ledecky.
"The double gold at KIBG 2025 is an achievement for all the practice I have undergone before coming here," said Diksha after her 5km victory on Thursday morning. She recorded a time of 1 hour, 10 mins and 12 seconds en route to her gold.
This was also her first time challenging the Arabian Sea. "The water was calm and there wasn’t much difficulty. This Khelo India platform will help a lot going forward. Now I am focusing on getting the international selection this year and winning a medal for India at the World Championship open swimming category," Diksha added.
In the men’s 5km open swim for men, Karnataka’s Drupad Ramakrishna recorded a time of 1 hour, six minutes and 46 seconds to win the gold. The class 10 student is however looking for more in his career; the medal at the Khelo India Beach Games being just a pit-stop.
"I have more competitions to go and more years to perform. I am hungry for more medals. At the Basavanagudi aquatic centre in Bangalore, we train continuously for 1-2 hours to adjust to sea swimming. Therefore, there is not much difference between there and here. Just that there are more waves here," said the 15-year-old Dhrupad.
Results:
5km open
Men: 1. Drupad Ramakrishna (Karnataka) 1:06:46; 2. Gundu Vishnu Vardhan (Telangana) 1:06:58; 3. Hemanth A (Tamil Nadu) 1:07:41
Women: 1. Diksha Yadav (Maharashtra) 1:10:12; 2. Purva Gawade (Maharashtra) 1:10:25; 3. Aasra R Sudhir (Karnataka) 1:10:29
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