Scared of water as a child, Neha sails to silver

CHENNAI: In August 2022, during the Yachting Association of India’s Youth Championship event at the Royal Madras Yacht Club, Neha Thakur emerged victorious in the girls’ ILCA 4 category. “Now I want to compete in the Asian Games and win a medal there,” she had said. True to her words, a year later, the 17-year-old bagged the first medal in the same event during the Asian Games.

Her cousin, Vishal Singh Thakur, a sailor, would tell you how sure he was of his sister’s success. “I am not surprised at all by her success. We were absolutely sure that she would win the medal looking at all the hard work she has put in,” he told this daily. It was Vishal who convinced Neha’s father to let the teenager shift to Bhopal to pursue sailing.

“After looking at her attitude and temperament as a kid, I thought she would be good at sailing.” The first task in front of him was to convince Neha’s parents to let their daughter go to Bhopal some 130 km away from their village Amlataj in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh. “Her mother was initially worried about sending her to Bhopal, but I told them that they don’t have to worry about her. I will be by her side. Once she started training in Bhopal, she was a little scared of the water, but she kept working harder. Neither did we let her lose her confidence nor we lost any faith in her,” he added.

At the Water Sports Academy in Bhopal, her training started under the watchful eyes of Arjuna Awardee Girdhari Lal (GL) Yadav in 2015. “When they start in the age group, we look if the sailor has that hunger in them. If a kid wants to learn, no one can stop them. Neha picked up things very fast. We started with a small boat — Optimist. It helps kids to build their skills and get away with any fear they have. At the early stage, sailors must be fearless. If that fear continues, they become protective of themselves instead of sailing,” Yadav mentioned adding “Neha started at the academy in 2015 and in eight years, she has won a silver medal at the Asian Games.”

Yadav is quick to also give credit to the Madhya Pradesh government, especially the president of the Madhya Pradesh Yachting Association, Yashodhara Raje Scindia. “Neha trains in Bhopal most of the time, but we have also sent her to Europe for training in the past. We have a tie-up with the SailCoah Foundation in Malta for her training abroad. In all of this Madhya Pradesh government has stood up by our side. She won a medal on her first attempt so you can say all of this has helped a lot.

“Our minister keeps an eye on all of the proceedings. The government has given us a free hand on where we want to conduct the training if we want to send our sailors for training abroad. The philosophy is simple. If our kids have that potential, we will continue to support them,” he added. The minister who keeps in touch with the sailors from the Academy didn’t hold back from praising the young sailor. “Neha has a good trait. She listens completely to her coach and her feet are on the ground. We were told that she had potential, so we spared no expenses for her training abroad”, the minister told this daily.

All of this support from family, coaches and the government helped Neha at the NBX Sailing Centre in Ningbo. “It has been a choppy sea and big waves in the Asian Games. We had a total of 11 races and the worst score can be discarded. She scored 27 points to secure the silver medal,” Captain Jitendra Dixit, joint secretary general of the Yachting Association of India, said from Hangzhou.

Once the silver medalist comes back from China, there will be celebrations. “We have nothing planned yet but we will celebrate with her,” Vishal laughs. But from the coaching point of view, this is just the beginning for Yadav. “It is a big achievement. No doubt, but this edition of the Asian Games will be over soon, and we will start our preparation for the next event soon. We have to, if we want more medalists like Neha,” he signed off.