Adelaide: Vishnu Saravanan etched history as he became the fist Indian sailor to qualify for consecutive OIympics. He achieved the feat after he made the cut for the Paris Games at the World Championships on Wednesday. The 24-year-old, who happens to be a Mumbai-based Army Yachting Node, secured qualification for the upcoming Paris Games by by finishing 26th out of 152 participants in ILCA-7 World Championship in Australia.
Saravanan also became the first Indian sailor to make the cut for Paris 2024. He grabbed the top rank among Asian countries, surpassing the gold medallists from Singapore in Asian Games and even those who had clinched medals from Hong Kong and Thailand in the Continental Qualifiers. Vishnu ended the competition with a score of 174 and is the standard rule, his least score of 49 in a race was subtracted, resulting in a net score of 125. Among his several other achievements Vishnu happens to be the 2019 Under-21 World Championships bronze medallist.
"It's better to do it in World Championships after having missed out on the Asian Championships. It was really unfortunate there," Saravanan reacted after sealing a spot at the Paris Olympics while interacting with RevSportz.
"I had to really push my ability to go forward," he added.
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The official Indian account for the Olympic Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) also shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) to announce the development.
"Olympic Quota! ⛵️ Team India 🇮🇳 has qualified for Sailing - Men's Dinghy thanks to Vishnu Saravanan’s performance at the ILCA 7 Men's World Championship 2024 in Australia," they shared on X.
Take a look at the post here:
(With Inputs From PTI)