National Skating Championships, Day 4: Karnataka sweeps relay events

Varsha Puranik of Karnataka at the National Championhips.

The day began with the heats for the rink 2 and rink 4 races. The excitement really began that afternoon as the finals started. The 10-12 boys was a two horse race with Mihir Indudhar taking advantage of a crash and sprinting away but getting beaten in the last stretch by Haryana’s Tanmay.

The girls was won by Rea Elizabeth Achiah to win her third gold and the individual championship. The 12-14 boys was won by Aditya Rao of Karnataka who led the race from start to finish thus securing his national championship which he would share with 2 other skaters. His female counterpart was Mouna Babu also of Karnataka who was followed by Amreen Khan which meant that the two of them would share the National Championship.

The 14-16 boys was won by Zaheer Abdul Khan with a huge lead with Yashas Shankar and Faraz Umar of Karnataka winning silver and bronze. Musckaan Chauhan managed to win her third gold beating out Seeliya Simith(Kar) and Madhulika Joshi(Mah). Above 16 women was won by Varsha Puranik. Shraddha Reddy of AP secured silver with a last minute sprint. The men’s race were predictably won by Nikhilesh Tabhane. In a split finish, G.V Raghavendra beat Akash Aradhya to take the silver and bronze for Karnataka.

There was about an hour and a half before the relays began. All the teams were practicing furiously. There are 3 people in each team and the race is 15 laps long. Each team member must be tagged at least once during the course of the event and because of the many other rules, there are always lots of disqualifications. The first race was the heats for the junior boys( 12 to 16 years). In the first heat, Tamil Nadu was leading followed by Karnataka until Tamil Nadu was disqualified near the end of the race. In the second heat Gujarat was disqualified followed by AP. However the decision to disqualify AP was overturned because only one team could be disqualified per heat. The junior boys was the only age group with heats so after they finished it was time to begin the finals.

First up were the junior girls. The teams competing were Karnataka, AP, Maharashtra, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. Karnataka and Haryana quickly took the lead. Almost immediately, Tamil Nadu was disqualified.

In the second lap, Haryana decided not to tag in that lap and so took the lead over Karnataka. However this lead was quickly covered. In the next 3 lap set, Haryana was disqualified giving Karnataka a huge lead and an almost certain gold. However in the last few laps, Maharashtra made a comeback and almost beat Karnataka’s finisher but in the end, Karnataka was victorious. The girls then took a victory lap carrying their state’s red and yellow flag. Next up was the senior women. This was not a very exciting race until Maharashtra pulled off a surprise win over 3 time champions Karnataka.

Next up was the junior boys. It started out as a close race but soon the dominoes started falling so 4 out of 6 teams were disqualified. Karnataka won the gold with more than a 100m lead and Kerala won the silver. There was no bronze medal given. The senior men’s race was portrayed as clash between Maharashtra and Karnataka. However Karnataka ran away with the gold and Maharashtra took the silver closely followed by the team from Gujarat.

Since this was the last event of the nationals, the atmosphere was electric and the shouts and cheering could be heard kilometres away from the rink. Every time a team got disqualified, a roar would go up and everyone was generally happy and stress free.

In the end, Karnataka won 3 out of 4 relays. After the relays, there was a prize distribution for all the events. Today was effectively the last day of the championship. The only event left was the marathon that would be held the next day.