Eklavya Batham of National Sailing School (Bhopal) won the Monsoon Regatta Trophy in the YAI-Monsoon Regatta at the Hussain Sagar Lake here on Saturday.
The weather conditions were much better as Sharanya Jadhav and Ajay Gajji, both from NBSC (Goa) took the silver and bronze respectively in the Optimist Class (u-19).
Ekalavya set a rare record by winning both the Monsoon Regatta Trophy and the S.H. Babu Memorial Trophy with a race to spare — a record. That feat was earlier achieved earlier by Reethi Kongara of the Yacht Club of Hyderabad in 2019.
Dharani and Mallesh of Telangana had two bad races and Nancy Rai and Aniraj Sendhav moved up within two points of the top duo but still in overall second.
Dharani and Mallesh were disqualified in the 10th race after a protest filed by Nancy was held against them by the International Jury.
K. Deekshita of Telangana also had a tough time with Shubham Jha of MP now in striking distance of two points and Sunday’s final race will be the decider.
Tamil Nadu’s Shreya Krishna fell significantly behind to fourth amongst girls and has been replaced by Aarti Verma of CESC (Pune), who is set for a bronze while the top two — Deekshita and Shubham — will fight it out for the gold and silver
“Apart from Ekalavya, I have never seen such a tightly contested Monsoon Regatta across all categories wherein we had to wait for the last of the 12 race event with two discards. Sunday’s race will be exciting for both sailors and coaches,” said Dadi Bhote, president, Telangana Sailing Association.
The leaderboard (after 11 races):
International Class (u-19): 1. L. Dharani & V. Mallesh (TS) 16 pts, 2. Nancy Rai & Aniraj Sendhav (MP) 18 pts, 3. Vidyanshi Mishra & Manish Sharma (MP) 25 pts.
Optimist Class (u-15): Boys: 1. Ekalavya Batham (MP) 15 pts, 2. Sharanya Yadav (NSBC Goa) 27 pts, 3. Ajay Gajji (NSBC Goa) 39 pts.
Girls: 1. K. Deekshita (TS) 52 pts, 2. Shagun Jha (MP) 55 pts, 3. Aarti Verma (CESC Maharashtra) 142 pts.
