Swimming Champion at Age 24 Makes UT Proud: Twice a day, Chahat Arora beats the breaststroke record for the entire country.

Chahat Arora, 24, of Chandigarh, broke the women's 100m breaststroke national record twice on a record-breaking day to win the gold medal at the 75th Senior National Swimming Championship in Guwahati on Saturday. She first did it in the semifinals and then again in the final. Arora won the gold medal by bettering her new national record with a timing of one minute and 13.61 seconds on Sunday evening after first breaking the earlier national record of one minute and 14.87 seconds set by Saloni Dalal in Thiruvananthapuram in 2018 with a time of one minute and 14.38 seconds in the 100m breaststroke heats on Sunday.Arora previously earned the silver medal in the women's 200-meter breaststroke, and with the medal she received on Saturday, she now has three medals from the nationals.

"Breaking the women's 100m breaststroke national record twice in one day is a tremendous accomplishment for me. It was wonderful to beat my previous best timing, which was one minute and 14.42 seconds, both in the semifinals and the championship race to set a new record for the country. The temperature was a little muggy here, but setting the national record will really inspire me, said Arora in a phone interview with The Indian Express from Guwahati.

Arora initially grabbed attention when she won the gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke event at the South Asian Games in Guwahati in the same year that she won the national title in the 50-meter breaststroke at the Senior Nationals. Arora, who competed for India in the 4X100 medley relay that earned the bronze medal in the 2017 Asian Age Group Swimming Championships in Tashkent, also took home the silver in the 2019 competition. Arora set a new national record when winning the 50m breaststroke title at the South Asian Games in Kathmandu, Nepal, that same year.

Arora set a new national record earlier this week in the women's 50m breaststroke event at Guwahati with a time of 32.94 seconds in the heats before winning the gold medal with a time of 33.22 seconds in the final. Arora became the first Indian woman to compete in the 32-second range in the 50-meter breaststroke thanks to the national record.

"Winning the gold on the opening day helped me feel like I am on the right road because the opening day national record in the 50m breaststroke heats signified that anything I was targeting in these nationals was on spot. I've been working out with my coach Sandeep Sejwal for the past year, and the 2018 National games are my next goal," stated Arora.