The girls from the hilly locations of Manipur bagged the gold in the coxless pair sub-juniors while, the eves from the coastal area of Tamil Nadu Chennai, anchored the gold in the coxed four.

However, for the Manipur eves - Wahida Rehman and Thoibi Devi they did their state proud. This was the first time ever they bagged a medal in the rowing event in the country, while it was yet another feather in the cap for the Tamil Nadu eves as they added medals to their already filled cupboard. ``We were sure of the medal, but getting gold is a bonus,'' said Tamil Nadu's Sweta Ravishankar who is the reigning junior champion in the same event.

Tamil Nadu team consisted of Shweta Ravishankar, Urmila Venkat, Divya V N Kumar, Shilpa Ramesh and Tulsi Naresh.

``We are thrilled and this being the first medal of any sort we are more excited,'' said Manipuri Wahida Rehman. Joining her in the jubilation was their coach, P Ibohal, who stated, ``we just got the boats two months ago, and the vigorous training paid off''.

In the fourth Sprint Nationals which is also conducted alongside the sub-juniors, Services Sports Control Board's oarsmen have lined themselves up for four gold medals which will be decided tomorrow.

But it was the Karanataka who accounted for the maximum medals (all bronze) as they claimed all the three bronze medals that were at stake for the day.

The sub-junior boys coxed four - V Rakesh, Abhivan Anand, Ishit Agarwal, Manish Kumar and Dinesh M of Karnataka got the better of the hosts Maharashtra Rowing Association by just half-a- boat. In the open coxed their men defeated CERA by just .3 seconds and the challengers foursome in the coxed accounted for the third bronze beating the favourites Services Sports Control Board.