Hyderabad Sailors shine at the just concluded Sailing Nationals in Mumbai

Girl sailors won One Gold and Two Bronze medals

Hyderabad, May 14, 2019: When Shrisha Kerere , 14 of Mahbubnagar Telangana, from a Social Welfare School and daughter of daily wage farmers started learning to sail at the Yacht Club of Hyderabad she least expected to win a Gold Medal and even less did she expect a night long celebration of her Gold medal at her village at Pagidyala after a tumultuous welcome procession.

With a Gold in hand she is now practicing hard for the Telangana State Regatta and Monsoon Regatta in July with the full support of her parents and mentor Dr.Praveen Kumar .

The Yacht Club of Hyderabad has produced some awesome results at the Nationals at Mumbai recently with one Gold and two Bronze medals all won by girls

Preethi Kongara of Nallakunta Govt School , currently ranked No.3 in India under 16 retained her ranking with a Bronze and Mehboobee Tungara who never goes without a medal at a National Championship clinched a Bronze in the Girls under 18.

This is Preethi’s first national medal at a National event and despite some great performances in the past 3 years ,a medal has always been evasive.

Preethi is from Nallakunta Govt School and Mehboobee is from Marredpally Govt School while Sirisha is from Mahbubnagar School that comes under Dr.Praveen Kumar, IPS who runs the Telangana Social Welfare Schools.

The most spectacular performance however came from Ajay Gajji, 10 who shot up to No.9 at his first Nationals a feat never seen before. Ajay was in full form and noting his talent the Navy has already short listed him to join their Sailing School at Goa and he will soon be sailing under Navy colours if he clears the medicals.

Ajay at just 10 years old is heading to National and International glory being the youngest sailor in the top 10 in India and currently ranked No.1 in Telangana.

“Our focus is largely to get rock solid careers for all those who get selected and we support them till they graduate and will also help them select from a wide variety of careers. While it does help a great deal if they collect a few medals along the way “, said Suheim Sheikh President and Coach at the Yacht Club of Hyderabad.

“This was the first year we took 10 kids from the Tribal belt and hopefully we will produce India’s first sailing champion from amongst them. We meet our young alumni from YCH every few months at national events and its great to see them gradually grow into motivated athletes inculcating the culture and discipline of the armed forces” he added

“This was my first Nationals and I came first in a race beating all the sailors in India and that felt great”, said Ajay Gajji beaming from his boat . His predecessor Vijay Sabbath also from small town Pargi of Vikarabad district Telangana trained at the Yacht Club and rose to be National Champion at the Army Sailing School. Ajay dreams of following suit.

Telangana Sailors who have moved from the Yacht Club to the Army and Navy continue to top the National lists with Durga Prasad , erstwhile National Sub Junior Champion now ranked No.1 amongst under 18 boys and Vijay Sabbath now with the Army is ranked India No.1 under 16 Boys . Both medal winners at the Nationals, internationals working hard to become officers in the armed forces.