Students in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam get training in kayaking, paddle boarding
NAGAPATTINAM: Wearing a life jacket and mounted on a kayak, R Ajay (16) powered through the waves at Nagapattinam New Beach on Wednesday, mastering kayaking on his first-ever try.
Although kayaking was a new thing for him, the sea has been his terrain all along, as he hails from the fisher community. Like Ajay, around 50 other children aged 10 to 17 and mostly from the fisher community had their hands-on experience with sea kayaks and stand-up paddle (SUP) boards for the first time, courtesy the Nagapattinam Tourism Promotion Committee.
To introduce the water sport to the youth in the district, the committee headed by Collector P Akash in coordination with Ocean Ambassadors, Tamil Nadu Surfing Association, Quest Academy and TT Group brought a team from the JD&AV Grom Quest down to the New Beach, which taught stand-up paddleboarding and kayaking to the children for half a day.
The training was followed up with a sea kayaking and beach flag competition in the afternoon held under two categories: for ages 10 to 14, and 15 to 17. The competition flagged off by the collector was to select potential students and train them to become professional athletes.
Through the competition, 13 children were identified for further training. The selected children will be sent either to Quest Water Sports Academy, located near Rameswaram, or Surf Turf in Kovalam, Chennai, for a four-day water sports training in December. A few among them will be further trained for state and national events.
Pointing to a group of children standing around an instructor who was seated on a kayak and teaching them to ride it, Jehan Hoshi Driver, who co-heads the JD&AV Grom Quest, said, “The motive of the Quest is to find talents across India like these kids, to make them aware of such beautiful competitive water sports. The Grom Quest is a pan-India grassroots Stand Up Paddle training and talent hunt designed to discover and nurture the next generation of national kayak & SUP athletes.”
Driver added that the initiative particularly targets children from modest background and those from the fisher community. It aims to nurture them with self-sustainability, where they can either become coaches or athletes, he said.
