Shiris Gurung of Tribhuvan Army Club (TAC) and Tisha Shakya of Lincoln School claimed triple gold medal and set national records on the opening day of the seventh NSA Cup Swimming Championships at the International Sports Complex in Satdobato on Monday.

Gurung won the men’s 100m freestyle gold in a record time of 57.69 seconds and took the 200m individual medley and 200m backstroke titles. Gurung bettered his own record of 57.76 seconds set during the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil. His clubmate Anubhav Subba finished second in 59.87 and Devesh Manandhar of Nepal Armed Police Club took bronze in 1:00.6 minutes.

Making a return to the pool after Rio, Gurung won the first event of the day clocking 2:37.78 in 200m IM to beat Subba (2:38.13) and Urgen Sherpa (2:50.81) of Lincoln. In a podium finish for TAC, Gurung’s 200m backstroke gold came in 2:47.57 and in the process he beat Manoj Bakhati (2:53.37) and Dilip Thapa Magar (3:03.93).

On a day when five national records were made by five different swimmers, Shakya set new mark of 1:25.82 in 100m breaststroke to better her previous record of 1:26.01 set during the sixth Fina Junior World Championship in Indianapolis. Shakya finished ahead of Duana Lama (1:28.14) of John Dewey School and Upasthiti Maharjan (1:30.63) of Premier International School.

Shakya earlier won 200m freestyle in 2:29.85 to get the better of Lama (2:32.43) and Sameera Shova Thapa (2:42.50) of Nisarga Batika School. Her third gold came in the 100m freestyle where she clocked 1:07.37 and left behind Thapa (1:10.08) and schoolmate Oshina Bharati (1:11.19).

Alexander Shah of Lincoln set a new national record in men’s 100m backstroke after he completed the course in 1:10.93. He broke the previous record of 1:12.00 set by Gurung during the 21st National Open last year. Shah’s schoolmate Dane Tifawy ended up in second with the timing of 1:17.56 and Nitesh Manandhar of APF third in 1:18.56.

Shuvam Shrestha also managed to better his own record of 32.40 in the men’s 50m breaststroke set during 20th National Open last year finishing the event on Monday with a new timing of 32.19. Kiran Karki (33.66) and Bedagya Raj Joshi (36.37) took silver and bronze respectively. The other national record came for Anubhav Subba in the men’s 500m butterfly after he clocked 28.25. He bettered his own record of 28.26 set during the 17th Fina World Championships in Hungary earlier this year. Subba prevailed over Manandhar (28.60) of APF and Sherpa (30.97) of Lincoln.

Bharati also struck gold in the opening day clocking 1:23.00 in the women’s 100m backstroke. She defeated Ayushma Tuladhar (1:28.59) of Lincoln and Anushka Pokhrel (1:32.91) of Rajarshi Gurukul.  Tuladhar later overcame Bharati in the 50m butterfly timing 33.56 while the latter finished with the timing of 36.03.

Lama was third in 36.60. Suresh Rai of TAC won the 200m butterfly in 3:06.56, way ahead of Anan Lama (3:15.09) of Loyola College and his clubmate Jagat Shrestha (3:22.42). Lincoln School won the 4x50m mixed relay clocking 2:04.87 minutes.