Odisha swimming icon Pratyasa Ray emerged as the new best woman backstroke specialist of the country by winning back-to-back gold and third individual medal in her pet event at the 79th Senior National Aquatic Championships at Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in Ahmedabad, Gujarat today.

Maintaining her stellar show at the National stage, 24-year-old Pratyasa captured the gold medal in 100m backstroke with a personal best time of 1:04.75. Earlier she also secured the top spot in the heats, clocking 1:05.44.

The 100m backstroke gold assumed added significance as Pratyasa, the spearhead of Bhubaneswar-based Odisha IIS-JSP Swimming High Performance Centre, won the event with a lot of conviction, defeating the formidable Karnataka duo of Tanisha Gupta and Nina Venkatesh in the final today.

Tanisha settled for the silver medal with a time of 1:05.19, while Nina claimed the bronze, clocking 1:05.61. This was the second gold medal for Pratyasa, who bagged her maiden Senior National individual gold medal in 200m backstroke yesterday.

Before clinching the double gold, Pratyasa started her National campaign on a modest note, winning the bronze medal in 50m backstroke with a time of 30.59 seconds two days back. The development of Pratyasa can be gauged from the fact that she won all three medals with personal best timings.

Odisha missed a bronze medal on the fourth day of the championship as Mannata Mishra finished fourth in the womens 100m breaststroke, clocking 1:14.97. Odisha suffered another setback today with defending champions Shristi Upadhaya finishing fifth in womens 100m butterfly with a time of 1:04.59.

But the day proved to be historic for the swimming discipline in Odisha as Pratyasa became the first from the state to win two gold medals and three overall medals in a single edition of the Senior National Aquatics Championship.
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PHOTO: Odisha swimming icon Pratyasa Ray poses with her 100m backstroke gold medal at the 79th Senior National Aquatic Championships in Ahmedabad on 19 June 2026.