CHENNAI: Nethra Kumanan, Varun Thakkar and KC Ganapathy would fiddle with their boats and race each other in make-believe Olympics more than a decade ago in Chennai. They would all take turns at winning, share a laugh and repeat the process.
A couple of years later, Vishnu Saravanan, originally from Vellore but in Mumbai now, joined the group. They would catch up during nationals. They would interact with each other during exposure trips and competitions in Europe.
On Thursday, all of them created history. Within an hour, they booked Olympic slots via merit, the first for the country in sailing, at the Asian qualifier in Oman. “What more can you ask for?” says Ganapathy. “All of us friends, we used to train in Chennai, know each other so well... now going together to the Olympics.”
What these four have done is perhaps one of the country’s best achievements in water sports. Here’s a stat: since the turn of the century, there have been about 1,80,000 hours. In all that time, India managed to get just three sailors to go to the Olympics.
At the Millenium Resort on Thursday, Nethra, who will become the first Indian woman sailor to take part in the Olympics, confirmed her place in the Laser Radial Class. While that was academic (her lead was so vast she just had to have an incident free day), what made it doubly sweet was the pair of Ganapathy (captain) and Varun (crew) in the 49er Class and Vishnu Saravanan in the Laser Standard Class also going through.
Coach Tomasz Januszewski, who was with the team in Oman, called it a ‘fantastic moment’. “After years of development, hard work, sailors, coaches and commitment of parents, we have witnessed this great result,” he told this daily. Januszewski hopes the four Indians will kick-start a ‘new sailing era in Indian history’. In Tokyo, this will easily be the youngest among all disciplines from an Indian perspective: Nethra is 23, Varun is 25, Ganapathy is 24 and Vishnu is just out of his teens.
What made this qualifying campaign so special is the challenges they had to face last year. Their equipment was locked out in Abu Dhabi for well over a year, with the team having to make do with hired equipment. For example, with beaches out of bounds, Ganapathy was reduced to visualising exercises in Chennai for a majority of 2020. When Varun and he went off to Ramaeswaram in the southern most tip of India to train in the second part of the year, a bike accident almost ended Ganapathy’s chances of competing.
“I had a hairline fracture on the foot and suffered bad soft tissue damage. I just have to thank my doctors,” remembers Ganapathy, who won an Asiad medal with Ashok in 2018. Even as Ganapathy is reminiscing about the accident, the others gently pull his leg. But the respect his teammates have for him is evident. “When I got into the sailing for the first time, I kind of looked up to him,” says Vishnu. “I don’t know what to say today... just happy I guess.” More than a decade ago, they were happy to engage in backyard Olympic races on the water in Chennai. In July, they will get to taste the real thing.