Ravali, Tanuja steal the show at YAI Youth Nationals

Hyderabad: Two of the Telangana Sailing Association sailors Ravali Parandi and Tanuja Kameshwar won gold and bronze at the recently concluded Youth Nationals conducted by the Yachting Association of India off the coast at Bombay.

Ravali Parandi also won the Maj Gen. Harry Kapoor Trophy for the best sailor without a discord by a whopping 60 point lead, a record that will be very tough to be broken in future.

Ravali Parandi, who is at the end of her career in the under 16, sailed brilliantly at the Monsoon Regatta at Hyderabad but had missed her chances for a medal with a few bad races. She followed it up at the Mysore Nationals in August with a silver finishing just behind Jhansi Priya Laveti, who bagged gold and topped the charts at the YAI Junior Nationals from whereon Jhansi moved to the senior Laser class.

Tanuja Kameshwar relatively junior in experience shocked the fleet with many top 5 positions in the 10 races and closed with a Bronze, her first at a National event. This will shoot her up in the National ranking and is expected to encourage her to aim at the gold in the next event.

"Getting ahead of the far more experienced Ravali and Divanyshi Mishra of Bhopal (Silver) in a few races gives me the confidence that I can win the next nationals", said a brimming Tanuja at the end of last race of the Junior Nationals. Both sailors are students of the Udbhav School at Rasoolpura that is supported by the IIM Ahmedabad Alumni led by H.Sitaram.

'Ravali sailed like never before and in 4th race had a stupendous lead of 2.5 minutes over the next sailor while normally sailors finish within seconds of each other. Her reading of the winds and ability to take a lead and cover the fleet was a sheer joy to watch ", said Suheim Sheikh her Coach at the Yacht Club of Hyderabad.

"As we move from regatta to regatta our sailors from Telangana are surpassing themselves and proving that the land locked state of Telangana is far superior to all the coastal states. I congratulate Ravali and Tanuja and wish them the very best at the international level in the near future. " said Lt.Gen. KS Rao the President of the Telangana Sailing Association, that has fielded the largest number of entries at the nationals for 8 years in a row.