CM Trophy 2024: Chennai's Deeksha bags two gold in school girls' swimming event

CHENNAI: National games medallist Deeksha Sivakumar of Chennai underlined her prowess in the pool by grabbing two gold medals in a day in the school girls’ category in the CM Trophy 2024 here on Saturday.

Deeksha, representing TIPS School, Chennai, began her gold medal count by winning the 50m backstroke gold with a time of 31.61s, ahead of Maria Winciya S of Thirunelveli (32.15s) and J Archana of Tiruppur (34.20s).

She then returned to the pool after a short break to clinch the 100m freestyle gold with a time of 1:00:95s. Adwika Girish Nair of Coimbatore (1:04.44) and Sanju Shree R of Chengalpattu (1:10.26s) clinched silver and bronze, respectively.

Earlier, Krishnagiri district’s Samuthiram and Karunyadevi of Salem clinched the first two gold medals on offer in the para category by winning the men and women 100m races for visually challenged in the CM Trophy 2024.

Samuthiram stopped the clock at 11.92s to register a convincing win in the men’s 100m. Coimbatore’s Suresh Kumar (12.43s) and Ramanathapuram’s Vengatesh (12.71s) took home the silver and bronze, respectively.

In the women’s 100m race, Karunyadevi was almost 2 seconds faster than her challengers as she finished the race in 13.17s. Sandaiya of Theni (15.26s) and Nojisha of Kanniyakumari (15.58s) were second and third.

This is the second year of para events being added to the CM Trophy.

In the field events from visually challenged athletes R Balaji of Salem took the men’s shot put gold with a throw of 9.22m while A Sivakami of Ariyalur took the women’s shot put gold with a distance of 5.24m.

“I have been participating in Para games since 2012. And I have been the champion in my category at the state level since 2012. Last year, there was no shot-put event for visually challenged. On our request they added it this year and I am so happy to win gold and we have never had such big prize purse,” said the 47-year-old Sivakami.