Vishnu Saravanan battled grimly with two good races on Tuesday to leapfrog over Thailand’s Keerati Bualong to the second spot after eight races in the Laser Standard class in the Mussanah Open Sailing Championships, an Olympic qualifier, in the Gulf of Oman off the Millennium Resort in Mussanah. The racing will conclude with medal races for each class on Thursday.
With a fourth place to add to a podium finish that he secured in the day’s first race, he opened up a two-point lead over 2011 Asian champion. Jakarta Asian Games bronze medalist Ryan Lo Jun Han, with six podium finishes in-a-row, is firmly entrenched in the top spot in the race for two Olympic berths that are available.
It was a challenging day for the sailors with light winds to begin with but difficult later on as its speed dropped drastically, forcing them to focus mainly on avoiding major errors.
Harshita Tomar’s twin victories in the Laser Radial class helped her climb to the third spot after eight races. Despite a fifth-place finish in the second race of the day, Nethra Kumanan remained on the top of the charts with 15 points. The Netherlands’ Emma Charlotte Jeanne Savelon is in second place (17 points) well ahead of Harshita Tomar’s 30 points.
Nethra Kumanan exuded confidence after the day’s racing. “My aim is to be consistent and keep the points low so that I have an advantage going into the final days. Today was difficult because the wind suddenly died then came back during the race and I made some mistakes, but there are still two days to go so we’ll see what happens,” she said.
Chief Coach Tomasz Januszewski told the official website that the Indian team is improving day by day. “We have prepared well for this event; individually, as a team, and some members were sailing with a larger fleet in Mumbai before coming to Oman, and we have spent the time between events preparing the best we could and are showing good performances so far. We have improved since last year and we have not finished showing our ability on the water,” he said.
KC Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar remained in the lead with 42 points in the Skiff 49er class after 12 races but a seventh, fifth and fourth place finish for them in the three races on Tuesday allowed China’s Hong Wei and Chao Xiang to whittle down the gap to 9 points. They will have to remain alert and not let the sole Olympic qualifying slot slip away from them.
“Overall, we are happy with how the event is progressing and we want to stay focused and keep improving each day. We started off the event a bit shaky as we hadn’t raced for a year and a half coming into this, but we have been working each day to correct the previous day’s mistakes,” Ganapathy said, indicating their hunger to secure the ticket to Tokyo.
The Indian placings with scores after four days (discarded race shown in bold):
Laser Standard (Eight races): 2. Vishnu Saravanan 29 (3, 11, 2, 4, 3, 10, 3, 4); 7. Upamanyu Dutta 52 (6, 5, 13, 11, 8, 7, 18, 3); 10. Mohit Saini 64 (14, 9, 14, 5, 5, 8, 10, 13); 16. Gitesh 93 (13, 19, 11, 21DSQ, 14, 11, 11, 14). 18. Ram Milan Yadav 110 (12, 17, 19, 18, 20, 19, 9, 16).
Laser Radial (Eight races): 1. Nethra Kumanan 15 (2, 7, 1, 2, 1, 1, 3, 5); 3. Harshita Tomar 30 (4 2, 9, 7, 7, 8, 1, 1); 4. Ramya Saravanan 32 (13 DSQ, 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 8, 4); 12. Jayalakshmi Sundaravadivel 77 (11, 10, 12, 11, 12, 11, 11, 11).
Skiff 49er (12 races): 1. KC Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar 42 points (5, 10, 3, 4, 5, 3, 3, 1, 2, 4, 5, 4); 10. Prince Kurisinkal Noble and Manu Francis 88 (2, 11, 13, 3, 15 DNF, 10, 7, 5, 6, 11, 10, 10); 12. Sandip Jain and Munna Pandit 96 (12, 13, 4, 15UFD, 11, 4, 13, 9, 8, 10, 6, 6).
Skiff 49er FX (12 races): 4. Ekta Yadav and Ritika Dangi 37 points (3, 4, 1, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 5, 3, 4, 3).
Windsurfer RS:X (Men) (10 races): 5. Jerome Kumar Savarimuthu 47 points (11, 9, 6, 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 7, 6); 7. Ebad Ali 56 (3, 7, 4, 10, 6, 8, 5, 10, 11, 3).
Windsurfer RS: X (Women) (10 races): 3. Ishwarya Ganesh 25 points (2, 3, 3, 4 DNF, 4 NSC, 3, 3, 2, 3, 2).
Image: Vishnu Saravanan (Courtesy: Vishnu Saravanan Instagram Page)
