Juhi Desai, 14 and Ananya Chauhan, 16 of Telangana coasted into Silver and Gold Medals at the Kuwait and Qatar International Regattas respectively. These two little girls walked into the Yacht Club of Hyderabad in 2012, aged just 9 and 12 respectively. They won their first International medals for India within a few weeks from each other.
Ananya and Juhi started their sailing career at the Yacht Club and both displaying immense talent hit the Inland nationals at Kochi the very same year. ‘This is a moment of pride for the state that both Ananya Chauhan and Juhi Desai of Telangana have won Telangana’s first international sailing medals at the Qatar and Kuwait International Regattas.”, said Lt.Gen. KS Rao, President of the Telangana Sailing Association, himself an Arjuna Awardee. Juhi Desai started sailing in 2011 at the age of just 9 at the Yacht Club of Hyderabad and almost immediately was awarded the youngest sailor award and gradually moved up to getting a Gold in the sub juniors at the Telangana Open earlier this year. She moved to the juniors well before the age this year and finished a creditable 10th at the Monsoon Regatta.
Both girls are now sailing the Laser and have entered the junior nationals within a year of each other and are amongst the most promising girl sailors in the country and certainly the best in the state. “The Telangana Sailing Association, in collaboration with the Yacht Club, has recently launched a special training program for the girl child and with 15 girls already being trained for the Nationals we hope to scale it up to 50 by July”, said Lt.Gen KS Rao.
Ananya Chauhan, formerly from Gitanjali School is an all-rounder with great academic performance and is currently studying at Obul Reddy School has set her eyes on the 2018 Asian Games and the 2020 Olympics. Hussain Sagar has produced and continues to produce a stream of sailing talent and is rapidly growing as a sailing destination, Lt. Gen KS Rao added. (NSS)