Puttur, Sep 25: Sinchana Gowda and Anisha Nayak have created history by winning 2nd and 3rd places respectively in Covelong Point Classic, a national-level surfing championship held at Chennai. The championship was organised by Surfing Federation of India (SFI) under the licence from International Surfing Association (ISA). The event was judged by international surfers.
Sinchana Gowda and Anisha Nayak hail from Puttur. They were pulled in to surfing one year ago by their swimming coach Partha Varanashi who was in Australia for six years, where he learnt to surf. Sinchana and Anisha along with a few other children from Puttur started training under national medallist surfer Dhruva Das of Mantra Surf club at Balavana Swimming pool, Puttur. On weekdays these future stars trained at the pool. They would learn to paddle, balance on skate board, duck dive and work on their strength and conditioning. On weekends they were taken to the beach at Mulky and Bekal for training. There they would learn to face the big waves and tackle with their board to stand up and surf.
The hard work by these young surfers, their coach and dedication by their parents paid off when both of them seized the podium place at the Covelong point classic surf championship.
In round one (heats) both Sinchana and Anisha were up against two surfers from Australia and Russia. Both the girls fought hard and got through to the finals. Anisha who was down at the bottom till the last 5 minutes pushed forward trusting her instinct, paddled hard, caught that wave, stood up and pumped, which is what was made the international judges give her the best score of that round. Sinchana too did well to finish second in the heat behind Anisha.
In the finals, the girls from Puttur were up against Ishita Malavya who is India's first female surfer and Suhasini Damian of Auroville. The Bay of Bengal had no mercy on the women finalists! Powerful overhead swells with a strong current started to pick up as the horn went off for the 20 minute finals. All the four girls started to go after the big wave to impress the judges. However, the waves were too big and too hollow for the women. Meanwhile, in the 7th minute the 12-year-old Sinchana managed to catch something the rest couldn't - she spotted a big wave outside, paddled hard at it and caught it. As the speed picked up she pulled her shoulders up and brought her right foot up the board to stand up and fearlessly rides that wave to score the first points of the session.
Right after that at around 10 minute mark, Anisha pulled a classic. She spotted a wave on the right side and positioned herself perfectly, paddled and caught it text book style. Surfers get to catch as many as 10 waves in the 20 minute session. All the 10 waves are scored by the judges, however only the top 2 scores are added up to decide the results.
All the hard work they did during the training paid off. They can paddle faster and harder, they can hold their breath for over a minute with ease and their shoulders are strong enough to tackle big waves.
Suhasini from Auroville took the spotlight with her smart move. With last 5 minutes to go she started to surf on the left where the wave formation was better to surf. She rode two waves beautifully to score high points. She won the championship, taking home Rs 15,000 cash prize and an NSP surf board worth Rs 35,000
Sinchana won the 2nd place and Rs 10,000 cash prize, while Anisha bagged the 3rd spot and Rs 5,000 cash prize. Meenakshi Gowda and Vibha Nayak, the mothers of the girls were delighted to see their daughters triumph.
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