I’m honoured to have made history: Nethra
Nethra Kumanan is the first woman to qualify for a sailing event at Tokyo Olympics, and that too, by booking a direct berth through a qualifying event! The Chennai-based 23-year-old sailor, who represented India in 2014 and 2018 Asian Games, will compete as part of the laser radial class of sailing. She says, “I’m honoured to have made history. The Olympics have been a goal for a long time!”
Training under her Hungarian coach Tamas Eszes — a two-time Olympian in laser standard class — Kumanan recalls how she got stuck in Spain last year, due to the travel restrictions during the pandemic. “It made me homesick. I would watch a lot of Hindi movies when I would miss home and my family.”
Talk about home and the memories of her childhood, when her parents introduced her to the sport, come rushing back to her. “My parents would put me in a lot of extra curricular activities... every summer meant a different camp. Once we saw an advertisement about a sailing camp, and that’s how I joined the sport,” she reminisces.
Even her regular schooling had to take a back seat to reach where she is today. “I’ve been training abroad a lot. I had to leave regular schooling, and do my class XII through an open school. I’m four years behind; my younger brother and I are in the same year of college,” quips Kumanan, who is a second-year student of engineering.
This young sailor has faced her share of difficulties as well since the sport is quite expensive. “There was a whole year in the middle when I had to stop sailing. Now I have support from different places. There are clubs in India that provide opportunities, but here we focus more on studies and look at sailing as an extracurricular activity. Also, it’s more of the Navy or the Army that sail, and finding coaches is difficult as well. I hope it picks up in India in the near future.”