Shweta Sadanandan

Shweta SadanandanThe sailing fraternity in Chennai is all agog about the high seas achievements of super sailor Shweta Sadanandan (12), a class VIII student of Chettinad Vidyashram who won two national events hosted by the Tamil Nadu Sailing Association (TNSA) under the aegis of the Yachting Association of India (YAI) and the National Optimist Association of India last May (2007). Shweta was adjudged the Best Girl Optimist sailor in the Optimist National Coastal Sailing Championship and awarded sixth place overall among 47 participants. She also sailed to a grand finish on the final day of the five-day National Coastal Laser 4.7 Championship to win the Girls Gold and the second place overall. (The Optimist is a small dinghy for sailors under 16 and the Laser 4.7 is a more powerful Olympic class dinghy featuring only one sail of 4.7 sq m).Consequently she became a natural choice to represent India at the forthcoming International Optimist Dinghy Class Association (IODA) Asian Sailing Championships 2007, scheduled for July 7-15 in Singapore. The daughter of Captain P.T. Sadanandan, a pilot with the Chennai Port Trust and Geeta, a financial consultant, Shweta found her sea legs at age seven when she was inducted as a member of the Royal Madras Yacht Club and TNSA. On the prompting of her coach Munna Jamal at TNSA, she entered her first race in 2001 and won her first cadet class (two sailors) national championship in 2003. In 2004 she was awarded the Youngest Sailor title in the Optimist National Sailing Championship held in Chennai. Subsequently she was adjudged the Best Youngest Sailor in the under-12 category for two consecutive years at the Optimist Nationals held in 2005 in Goa and in 2006 in Mumbai.”When sailing you have to be focused, alert and sharply aware of your immediate environment. One should be able to quickly read the direction and speed of the wind, tides and prevailing currents. This requires strength, stamina and quick reflexes,” she says. A multi-talented individual, Shweta is also an accomplished bharatnatyam exponent and an enthusiastic participant in cultural events at school. Sailing, however, is her priority and she trains on Sundays plus three hours every day during school vacations. Meanwhile her sailing prowess has prompted Vestas, a Danish wind energy firm and the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) to sponsor her sailing events. “My immediate goal is to win the Asian sailing championship in Singapore and the national Optimist title next year. I‚m training hard,” she says.Wind in your sails!Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)Hrishikesh Kulkarni Hrishikesh Kulkarni (21), a final year MBBS student of Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai was recently awarded a special bronze medal for his research paper on the positive properties of ground flaxseed on the lipid profile (cholesterol levels) of rats at the Leiden International Medical Student Confe-rence, Netherlands. His research paper was chosen from among 200 presented by medical students worldwide. Together with the bronze medal and citation, Kulkarni was also awarded a travel grant of š400…