JAKARTA: The build-up for Sweta Shervegar and Varsha Gautham was so chaotic that the two youngsters thought about giving up on their dreams nearly 12 times in the last four months. The first two instances happened when their boat almost failed to make it to Jakarta in time for the Asian Sailing Championships.The next 10 were thanks to a bitter court case that stretched for two months. Sweta explained what the pair went through in June and July. “Instead of practicing on water, we were fighting in court.”
Varsha had on at least four separate occasions called her parents up to tell them that she was giving up. “I had those thoughts like 10 times. There were four nights in New Delhi when I called them and said, ‘Tomorrow I am not going (to court). Whatever happens, let it. If I don’t go to the Asian Games, so be it. But I am not fighting’. I can assure you that that part was far from being a glamourous story.” It may have seemed like a chore then. But the 20-year-old, who has “complete faith in India’s judiciary system”, is delighted to have fought through it all to become one of the very few Indians with multiple Asiad medals in sailing (Varsha won bronze with fellow Chennai girl Aishwarya Nedunchezhiyan in the 29er category). On Friday, she and Sweta, who had only six days of actual training because of the problems back home, won silver in the 49erFX women’s discipline.
They went into the water with more than a 50 per cent chance of hanging on to their second position, but Sweta and Varsha had to be wary of the threat posed by their Thailand counterparts.“Today’s race wasn’t easy,” Varsha, whose personal coach is Peter Conway (a former Yachting Association of India (YAI) coach) says. “We knew there was a very real chance that we could lose the silver. We were under a lot of pressure. Our main objective was to finish our race less than three positions below Thailand (they finished fourth, while Thailand was third in the 15th and final race of the competition).”
The partnership, which was formed only last year, has also taken to Ketto, an online crowd-funding platform, to fund their participation in international competitions and exposure trips. “We were like, ‘Give us whatever you have, and we will take it’. All our family and friends, and people who don’t know us willingly donated a lot to the campaign. We need roughly `6-7 lakh for each international trip. Even people from America gave us money... $5, $10 and so on. We are extremely grateful to all the people who supported us.”
Does she want to say anything to Ekta Yadav (Shaila Charls and she were picked by YAI to represent India, before Indian Olympic Association ruled in Varsha’s and Sweta’s favour) or Aishwarya? “Not really. This is about us. We’ve just won silver.” swaroop@newindianexpress.com
Route to silver
Out of the 15 races on six days, the 14 best races are taken into account before the final points. Team with the least points takes gold, and so on. After discounting one race, Varsha (captain) and Sweta (crew) finished with 40 points. That was two better than Thailand, who took bronze
with 42 points.