By Venkatachari JagannathanChennai, July 20 : The Indian sailing team in Tokyo is tuning up their new boats ahead of the Olympics, said a senior official of Yachting Association of India (YAI).
He also said the beds provided in their rooms are made of wood and the food is not an issue.
“The team is staying not far away from the place of practice.The wind is light.The wind condition is fluctuating there.If the wind is light, it is advantageous for people who are light,” Ashok R.Thakkar, Vice President, told IANS.
According to him, the sailors’ prospects depend on the wind condition on that particular day.
Thakkar’s son Varun Thakkar is also part of the Indian sailing team now in Tokyo, Japan.
“The Indian team practiced for about three hours in the waters.They also do physical exercises,” Thakkar added.
According to him, the team is tuning up their new boats.
“They had practiced with their old boats.But they were not able to take their old boats to Tokyo due to logistical reasons during the Covid-19,” he added.
Queried about the accommodation provided there for the team he said it is good and contrary to what is in the news, the cots provided for the sailing team is made of wood and not cardboard.
“After reading the reports, I had asked about that.I was told that the cot is made of wood and the bed is good,” Thakkar said.
As regards food, sailors were outside India for a major part of the year and it is not an issue for them.
“Availability or non-availability of Indian food is not an issue for the sailing team members,” Thakkar said.
The Indian sailing team for Olympics consist of Varun Thakkar, K.C.Ganapathy, Vishnu Saravanan and Nethra Kumanan.
According to Varun and Ganapathy, sailing unlike other sporting disciplines does not have multiple events to win, like a freestyle swimmer can swim in 100 mtrs 500 mtrs and so on and likewise an Athlete can run in 100 mtrs 400 mtrs etc.
It is noteworthy that only in 2021 sailors from India have qualified for the Olympics and will be participating as qualified sports person, as till date all entries have been through wild card entries or quota slots.Asia has one slot in each sailing class and Japan being the host country, they opined.
Ahead of the Olympics Varun and Ganapathy had won the Mussanah Open Championship held in April.
“Till now in the senior classes no civilian has shown such performance in the sport of sailing in adult/senior classes, it has always been the armed forces that have dominated the senior classes in sailing,” said Varun.
He said he and his sailing partner Ganapathy have performed and won the nationals and to specify a few events at the selection trials for the Asian Games we came first in all the races and there were a total 14 entries and of which one were civilian and the remaining were all armed forces.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians
.
