The big day had finally arrived. It was time for the biggest races in the year for all Indian skaters. The day started off with the 15km rink Elimination race. The races began from the younger age groups. The 12-14 girls inaugurated the nationals and Karnataka began their nationals with a bang taking gold and silver in the very first race. The race was relatively slow and it finally came down to the end sprint as was expected. Mouna Babu and Thirtha Subbiah brought home the laurels for Karnataka. Next was the 12-14 boys. The race was fast from the beginning and stayed that way until the end with Ashish from Tamil Nadu taking home gold and Rithik from Karnataka winning silver.
The screams and loud encouragement for the skaters from the side-lines would be enough to deafen those not used to the level of electricity and enthusiasm that the Nationals elicits from all its participants, whether they are coaches, skaters or parents. The 14-16 girls event was next and predictably slow with a few breakaway efforts which were quickly neutralized. Again, the race was decided by the last one and a half laps, which were won by Akhila Roy Chowdhury of Karnataka followed by Anushree Chauhan of Maharashtra and Sarika, again from Maharashtra.
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The 14-16 boys was exciting with some really tremendous skaters competing. The race had a very varied pace and in the end Tejeshwar of Tamil Nadu took home gold with Harshveer of Punjab winning silver and Faraz Umar from Karnataka unexpectedly winning bronze. The above 16 women’s race was uneventful until the finishing stretch with Anoli Shah of Gujarat taking the gold, Anuja of Maharashtra winning silver, followed closely by Gujarat’s Kanika Bhalla who won the bronze.
The men’s race for the same age group was highly anticipated and it did not disappoint. The race had a brisk pace and then at around the 15 laps to go mark, Varshith Venugopal (Kar) took off, eliminating lots of skaters at once until those who were left were the cream of the crop. The finish was close with Parth of Gujarat winning gold and Varshith winning the silver.
The evening’s races were the inline time trial events. In the junior boys below 12, Hrithik Karadi of Karnataka set a new national record of 28.48sec narrowly beating out Mihir Indudhar also from Karnataka. In the same age age group of girls, Amreen Khan of AP won the gold with an unbelievable time of 29.00sec. The next age group with news makers was the 14-16 boys.
Zaheer Khan of AP outclassed the rest with a sensational timing of 26.25sec followed by Prithviraj Deshmukh of Karnataka taking home silver with a personal best of 26.93sec. They were the only two in their age group to crack the 26s. The next exciting race was the above 16 women which was portrayed as the clash of the titans which proved instead to be a no contest. Varsha Puranik and Aarathy Kasturiraj were predicted to take silver and gold but no one expected the huge gap that would be created between them. Aarathy churned out a time of 28.3sec winning gold with Varsha placing a distant second with 29.2. Finally it was time for the event that everyone had been waiting for- Above 16 men. Akash Aradhya of Karnataka, skating second, held the first place with 26.04sec but he knew just as everybody else did, that that wouldn’t be enough.
When Nikhilesh Tabhane stood at the line, he was met with a huge cheer. This was a cheer not confined to the Maharashtrian contingent but roared by all present there. The roar went on for some time as Nikhilesh prepared himself.
The officials inside the track put their hand up to quiet the crowd down and then he started. He was on track to beating the national record that he himself had set a few months ago, but fell short at 25.65sec which is still a tremendous time. And so the day ended on a high.
Day Two’s agenda includes the Road races for inliners and time trials for quads as well as Rink 2A and Rink 5 heats. Will keep you posted.
