The team part assisted by the Telangana Youth Welfare and tourism ministry, largely comprising beginners headed out for their first International event at Chennai, their practice was impacted by the huge storm Vardha yet they weathered the resulting deep swell and North Easterly monsoon winds, most of them sailing in the wide open sea for the first time.
The TS girls and boys performed creditably amongst competition from 12 countries including Sweden, Hong Kong and Thailand. Sachin Bethamalla from Shaikpet Model school , barely 11 years old won two silver medals in the sub-junior India International Green fleet by just a single point in a hard fought gruelling 12 race series. Sachin’s father works at a small hotel in Secunderabad.
Rishab Nayar all of 15 moved to a higher category of boat , the radial class and triumphed with a silver at is maiden attempt and his first international bronze in the same category. Heading back for Chicago Rishab plans to sail international waters but “my heart will always be in Hyderabad and in TS”, says the precocious lad.
Juhi Desai wins her first national bronze in the Junior Laser Class surprised everybody with the last race performance to a podium finish. Juhi is the only girl from Telangana to win a medal at this nationals and hopes to move up to gold next year.
Gautham Kantala, the son of a single mother who works at Kims hospital as a helper and studies at Udbhav School was the most hard fought battle and he took the game to the wire. He had a load of bad luck with two disqualifications and a wrong reading of a mark and was as a consequence beaten to gold by the local Tamil Nadu sailors, Neelanand and Navyn Prabhakar.
“Gautam sailed as a man possessed and it is good to see him move into the Juniors this year and sign off with a national medal. He could have fared a bit better were it not for a handful of unforced errors and disqualifications” said Suheim Sheikh his coach at the Yacht Club.
Telangana State had a few more great finishes with 4th and 5th positions going to Masti Saibaba & Durga Prasad and Tanishq Desai also finishing 4th behind Rishab Nayar of Telangana State and Dheer Singhi of Tamil nadu all near misses for medals. At their first nationals, Vijay Kumar and Vadla Mallesham of Shaikpet School finished 10 and 15 respectively at the Youth Nationals.
