PANAJI
Katya Coelho won the IQ Foil women’s title while Adarsh Chunekar won the gold in Raceboard Youth category at the Goa State Sailing Championship organised by Goa Yachting Association (GYA) under the aegis of Sports Authority of Goa (SAG), recently at Hawaii beach, Dona Paula.
Windsurfers competed in the IQ Foil and Raceboard category while other sailors participated in the ILCA and Optimist category. The championship was conducted by Capt Prashant Menon, national race officer, assisted by Arjun Singh and measurer Russell Lobo. Strong windy conditions and massive swells on all three days of the championship ensured that the sailors were pushed to their limits.
Katya, who will represent India at the Asian Games in China in September, won the gold in the IQ Foil women’s category. In Raceboard Youth category, Adarsh Chunekar won the title ahead of Rudra Palekar and Vinay Kulabkar who won the silver and bronze respectively.
In the ILCA 4 Youth Boys category, Adhvait Menon of INWTC Mandovi, who will represent India at the Asian Games, China, won the gold while Vishwanath Padidala and G Mallesh of the Navy Boys School Company (NBSC), Verem, won the silver and bronze respectively.
Pearl Colvalcar, who is the reserve sailor to represent India in the ILCA 4 category at the Asian Games, China, won gold in the ILCA 6 Women’s category. In the Optimist Junior Boys category, NBSC made a clean sweep with the gold going to Sharanya Yuvraj Jadhav, silver to Ajay Gajji and bronze to Vikram Singh Bhati.
In the Optimist Sub Junior Boys category, there was a tough competition with the top two sailors separated by only one point as Siddhant Guttikunda managed to clinch the gold ahead of Neel Karmalkar, who took the silver and Azzuro Patrao who won the bronze. In the Optimist Sub Junior Girls category, Tara Manral won the gold while Saachi Guttikunda won the silver. These are the future prospects for Goa at the Nationals in the next few years.
