Oct 20: The pair of Commander R. Mahesh and Girdharilal Yadav of Indian sailing team opened the golden account for Indian contingent by winning the first gold medal at the 4th CISM Military World Games for the hosts at the Indian Naval Watermanship Training Centre in Mumbai on Friday.
With the tough wind conditions again, only one of the scheduled three races was possible at Indian Navy Watermanship. The experienced campaigners made no mistake maintaining their lead in the final round and won the day’s only race, finishing the eight-race competition with 10.9 points, ahead of France (19) and Spain (25), who finished second and third respectively.
“Though we had a comfortable lead going into the final race, we did not want to leave anything to chance.
We got off to a good start and managed to hold the edge throughout. Our eyes were on France, but by the second lap we had opened up a huge lead so were never really threatened,” said Mahesh after winning the gold.
He also said about the contribution from his partner Yadav, “He was exceptional as a crew member, hardworking and completely dedicated to his job.”
The duo of these class sailors has been together for the past two years and a successful international career, after medals at the Asian Games in Doha and Busan respectively.
"With only one race held today the Indians were always had the best chance to win it. The Indian team has done much more practice in these conditions and know the sea and wind better, so they were always the most likely to win," Benjamin Diouris, coach of the French team said.
Final standings (after 8 races with one abandoned): 1. India (R. Mahesh/Girdharilal Yadav) 10.9 points, 2. France (Nicolas Pauchet/Besson Billy) 19, 3. Spain (Jose Medina Ruiz/Francisco Soto Loureiro) 25
4. Finland (Anttila Teemu/Tamminem Sami) 28, 5. Russia (Andrey Kiriljuk/Maksim Semerhanov) 52.
6. Germany (Lucas Zellmer/Heiko Seelig) 57, 7. Norway (Bratbak Pal/Johansen Anders) 58, 8. Greece (Vasilas Georgios/Mitakis Evangelos) 61.
9. Turkey (Selim Kakis/Koroglu Ahmet) 61 and 10. Poland (Mysliweic Wojoceich/Kaminski Jremeusr) 65.
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