CHENNAI: From her hotel balcony at the Al Mussanah Sports City in Oman, Varsha Gautham can’t help but look at the ocean water. The pristine Gulf of Oman is sparkling under the sun and Varsha is almost tempted to hunt for her sailing gear and hit the waters. But one of the youngest two-time Asian Games medallist (bronze in 2014 followed by silver in 2018) this country has produced can’t do that for two reasons. One, she has just started a period of quarantine after flying out of Chennai on Saturday.
Two, and more importantly, she isn’t at the Olympic qualifier beginning on April 1 as a participant. The 23-year-old is there as a coach. Considering that Varsha is still very young, why did she decide to do this? At the very outset, the Chennai girl makes the point that she hasn’t said goodbye to her sailing career. “I very much love sailing,” she says. “This doesn’t mean that I have ruled out taking part competitively ever again. That’s not the case.”
But the decision to coach came as a surprise even to her. In fact, that opportunity arose less than 10 days ago and she told herself ‘why not?’ “This isn’t some career change,” she says. “I had done some coaching training with my coach (Pete Conway) but I really don’t know if I’m qualified or anything. Hopefully, I can be of some use.” She will be ‘helping (a word she uses)’ Hsiu Chuan Chiang (Ogawa), an athlete from Chinese Taipei, who competes in laser standard.
So why isn’t she competing at the Mussanah Open Championship, the last qualifier for Asian athletes to get to Tokyo? She gives a multi-layered answer including a lack of preparation time as well as multiple changes of venue owing to the pandemic. “My partner and I went through the process of getting ready in the beginning of 2020, to test ourselves for that shot at qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics but that was before the pandemic. Training and competing now... would be a half-hearted attempt, it just didn’t feel right.”
The backstory too a bitter court case involving the Yatching Association of India (YAI) and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) before the 2018 Asian Games can’t be ignored. While the details of the court case is well documented, Varsha reveals that she was spent mentally. “I wasn’t in a good mind space post that. In fact, as soon as I came out of the water after winning that silver with Sweta Shervegar (in the women’s 49er), I wasn’t happy or anything. Just relieved.”
Since then, she ‘asked some questions of herself’ before working ‘in marketing (laughs)’ at a company in Chennai. After finding the water nauseating post the Asian Games, she can’t help but look at it again.