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Water display it was!
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Yet another dominant performance by Army Yachting Node at the Championship
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While the AYN has done a splendid job of spotting and grooming talent civilian sailors are being hard-pressed to compete with
PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR
Winners of the of the Laser Sailing National Championships (from left) N. S. Johal (Laser Standard), Navin Shirodkar Laser 4.7) , Archana Kamalakar (Laser Radial Woman ) Ghanshyam (Mistral Class) and Rajesh Choudhary (Laser Radial), with their trophies.
The Laser sailing national championship which is held every year at the Hussain Sagar lake has been witnessing a growing dominance by the sailors belonging to the Army Yachting Node (AYN) based in Mumbai. This year it was no different with most of the winners in the different categories emerging from the AYN.
While the AYN has done a splendid job of spotting and grooming talent present within various units of the Indian army and navy, the results of the Hyderabad regatta show that civilian sailors are now increasingly being hard-pressed to compete with the professional approach and the competency that the army organisation has achieved.
It is difficult for civilians to find the time, the funds and the opportunities to train and compete as regularly as the AYN sailors. But those who are taking part in sailing competitions, will have to find some way around these hurdles for them to stay in the sport and hold their own against the AYN sailors.
As expected one of the best performances came from Rajesh Choudhary who came up with a classy victory in the Laser Radial class. He is gunning for the gold medal in the forthcoming Asian Games to be held in Doha, Qatar, later this year. "When I take part in the Asian Games in Doha, my target will be the gold medal in the Laser Radial class. With this in mind I have been concentrating on sailing in the Radial class and that is why I sailed in this category in the Hyderabad nationals," said Rajesh.
Another good performer was N.S. Johal who won the title in the Laser Standard class. Johal had the chance to wrap up the issue on the penultimate day itself but he ran into a bad patch and it was only on the final day that he made sure of the title with convincing victories in two back to back races. The heavy winds on the first three days helped this tall and well-built sailor to give good performances in the initial stages of the competition.
In the Laser 4.7 class young Navin Shirodkar, an NDA cadet who had studied for a brief period in the Army School in Hyderabad, proved that he had no equals as he won all the races that were held in this category. The other sailor who did well here was Mrinalini Santhanam of Tamil Nadu.
In the Mistral class Ghanshyam proved that there is no substitute for consistency. This was a class wherein the competition was perhaps the toughest.
ABHIJIT SEN GUPTA
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