Katya Coelho won gold medal in IQ Foil while Adhvait Menon of INWTC Mandovi topped the ILCA 4 category, at the Goa State Sailing Championship organised by Goa Yachting Association (GYA) under the aegis of Sports Authority of Goa (SAG), at Hawaii beach, Dona Paula.
Windsurfers competed in the IQ Foil and Raceboard categories while other sailors participated in the ILCA and Optimist categories. 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 all the sailors were pushed to their limits.
Katya Coelho of GYA, who will represent India at the Asian Games in China in September this year, won gold medal in the IQ Foil Women’s Category. Adarsh Chunekar won gold medal in Raceboard Youth category ahead of Rudra Palekar and Vinay Kulabkar who won the silver and bronze medal respectively.
In the ILCA 4 Youth Boys Category, Adhvait Menon of INWTC Mandovi, who will represent India at the Asian Games China, won gold medal. 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 gold going to Sharanya Yuvraj Jadhav, silver to Ajay Gajji and bronze medal to Vikram Singh Bhati.
In the Optimist Sub-Junior Boys category, there was tough competition with the top 2 sailors separated by only 1 point, Siddhant Guttikunda finally managing to clinch the gold ahead of Neel Karmalkar who took silver and Azzuro Patrao had to settle for bronze.
In the Optimist Sub-Junior Girls Category Tara Manral won the gold while Saachi Guttikunda won silver. These are the future prospects for Goa at Nationals in the next few years.
Cmdr. Sanjay Panda, CO, INS Mandovi, Goa was the chief guest at the prize distribution ceremony and congratulated GYA for hosting the championship, he stressed to the sailors the importance of hard work and dedication to excel at the sport and reiterated his commitment to having joint training programmes for NBSC and GYA sailors. Capt. Donde, India’s first Solo Circumnavigator was the Guest of Honour. Capt. Prashant Menon, Rainer Dias – President of GYA, and Keith D’Souza, Gen. Secretary of GYA, were also present.
Congratulations folks!