Rajasthan teen Gaurvi sets new swimming record off Mumbai

Gaurvi Singhvi, a 14-year old schoolgirl from Rajasthan's Udaipur, on Tuesday created a new national record by swimming 48 km in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai.

Gaurvi jumped into the waters near Khar-Danda around 3.30 a.m. and completed the tiring swim to Gateway of India on the southern tip of Mumbai around 12.40 p.m., in a little over 9hrs.

"The swim was smooth and uneventful though tiring, but she made it successfully after battling the deep water currents," said a family member as Gaurvi, shivering a little, stepped out of the chilly sea waters.

This was the first and longest open sea swimming challenge attempted by any Indian swimmer and now, she has set targets on swimming the English Channel in the near future besides other major swimming challenges globally, said a spokesperson.

A Class 9 student of Delhi Public School, Udaipur, Gaurvi had begun her preparations for this challenge over two months ago by rigorous 25 kms swimming training in the Fatehsagar lake in her home town guided by her coach Mahesh Paliwal.

Earlier, she has notched successes like becoming the first person to swim 36 kms from the Rajiv Gandhi Bandra Worli Sea link to Gateway of India in 6 hours, 35 minutes, and the fastest and youngest girl to swim 17 kms from Raj Bhavan to Gateway of India in 3 hours, 58 minutes, both in March 2017.

In her home state, she has broken the record of 1,500 metre free style swimming in the Rajasthan Junior and Sub-Junion Swimming Championships last year.

Ranked 11th in the 400 m category Group 2 national rankings by School Games Federation of India, Gaurvi has 14 golds, eight silvers and three bronzes under her belt at the state-level, besides many more medals and honours at other levels across the country.