The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Bijay posts impressive win

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 23, 2005

Sport

Sport - Athletics

Bijay posts impressive win

A. Joseph Antony

HYDERABAD: : If one dismissed defending Laser Radial champion Bijay Kumar Rout as a has-been, he proved on Monday he was no pushover with an authoritative win in the seventh race at the Hussain Sagar Lake.

Amit Arvind claimed the laurels in the next race and his feat of competing in both sections was worthy of admiration for the sheer test in endurance.

While Amit considered the stress involved as another day in the office, his performances surged and dipped from shining leader to tame follower at times.

In the day's opening race, he was lying third when the sheet of his main sail came unstuck, hurtling him to eighth position.

As testimony to his grit, he clawed his way back to third at the finish.

Rout meanwhile did no wrong, right from a sound start to steadily building up a lead. When he breached the finish line between the race committee and a `VIP' vessel parked some way ahead, he had got the gun not less than 30 boat lengths ahead of class leader V. Harihara, who came in more than two minutes later.

A bronze medallist in the Asian championships at Mumbai and the World Enterprise championship with Aashim Mongia at Cork, Ireland last year, Arvind is a Lieutenant Commander with the Indian Naval Watermanship Training Centre (INWTC) at Mumbai.

Seasoned sailor Naresh Yadav led the Laser Standard fleet in the afternoon until the `loop' was completed. Thereafter R. Mahesh took over, emboldened by the gambles he was willing to take in striking a different path from the rest. While these risks saw him give the leaders more than a scare in the past, today it fetched him the first position.

In the day's concluding race, delayed by three quarters of an hour due to a wind shift from 280 to 310 degrees, resulting in re-laying of the course, N.S. Johal headed the fleet most of the way. The course was shortened to the end of the loop and on the `run,' the wind dropped dramatically. Johal veered to the right and that paid off, as he pounced on a puff of wind to power his way home.

The results:

Laser Radial: Race VII: 1. B.K. Rout (AYN); 2. V. Harihara (AYN); 3. Amit Arvind (INWTC).

Race VIII: 1. Amit Arvind; 2. V. Harihara; 3. B.K. Rout. Laser Standard: Race VII: 1. R. Mahesh (INWTC); 2. N.S. Johal (CESC); 3. Amit Arvind (INWTC).

Race VIII: 1. N.S. Johal; 2. Naresh Yadav (INWTC); 3. Rajesh Choudhary.

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