Karnataka's star swimmer Dhinidhi Desinghu clinched her fifth gold medal in the ongoing 38th National Games after bagging the top prize in women's 4x200m freestyle relay on Saturday, February 1.
Desinghu, who is hunting medals for fun, helped her team beat competition from Gujarat and Maharashtra in the relay event. Desinghu and her other teammates - Shirin, Shalini R Dixit and Meenakshi Menon - clocked a timing of 8 minute 54.87 seconds.
Notably, Desinghu had earlier won gold medals in the women's 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 4x100m freestyle relay and 50m freestyle events.
Services go on top of medals tally
Meanwhile, Services reached the top of the medals tally in the ongoing Games for the first time. They currently have 26 medals, including 14 Gold, 7 Silver and 5 Bronze medals.
Karnataka are second in the tally with a total medal count of 23 - 13 Gold, 5 Silver and 5 Bronze. Defending champions Maharashtra occupy the third spot currently with 41 medals (11 Gold, 18 Silver and 12 Bronze), while Manipur, who were in first place a day before, dropped to the fourth spot with 24 medals (11 Gold, 9 Silver and 4 Bronze).
Paris Olympian Srihari Nataraj led Karnataka to the men's 4x200m freestyle relay gold, with the team clocking 7:45.82. Nataraj's other teammates were Dhakshan S, Shoan Ganguly and Aneesh S Gowda.
In the shooting arena, the Punjab duo of Arjun Babuta and Ojasvi Thakur clinched the 10m air rifle mixed team gold medal.
The Punjab duo defeated Maharashtra's Arya Borse and Rudrankksh Patil 16-12 in the gold medal match on Day 4 of the shooting events.
Both the pairs were involved in an intense finale with nothing much to separate them before the Punjab duo sealed the win with a final shot score of 21.4 against Maharashtra's 21.
0.
"It feels absolutely amazing to win gold for our state, and of course, it was a true team effort," said the 16-year-old Ojasvi, after the gold medal win.
"While on the shooting range and aiming for gold, we both focused on our individual performances, striving to achieve the maximum points," said the 26-year-old Babuta.
Updated medal tally of National Games 2025:
| Rank | State/UT/Team | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | Services | 14 | 7 | 5 | 26 |
| 2 | Karnataka | 13 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
| 3 | Maharashtra | 11 | 18 | 12 | 41 |
| 4 | Manipur | 11 | 9 | 4 | 24 |
| 5 | Madhya Pradesh | 9 | 5 | 4 | 18 |
| 6 | Haryana | 5 | 8 | 13 | 26 |
| 7 | Kerala | 5 | 1 | 3 | 9 |
| 8 | Delhi | 4 | 7 | 4 | 15 |
| 9 | Tamil Nadu | 4 | 6 | 8 | 18 |
| 10 | Odisha | 4 | 3 | 7 | 14 |