Youngest Indian Sailor at the Asian Games

Meet Chithresh Tatha: The Youngest Sailor To Represent India At The Asian Games.

The young lad from Chennai is just 12 and is the youngest sailor from India to participate in the recently commenced Asian Games at Incheon, South Korea. He first developed an interest in the sport when he saw his sister Meghna sailing in the Laser Radial category and thought of giving the sport a try himself. Sincethen, he has never looked back and even won the gold medal in the India International Regatta (Under-12) in 2013.

A passion for sailing has taken this grade 7 student from Chennai’s Bhavan’s Rajaji Vidyashram school to countries like the UK, Malaysia, Turkey, Ireland, France, Bahrain, the Netherlands and Malta.

“I began sailing in 2009 and it came naturally to me. I love being on the water. It gives me great joy,” he told the New Indian Express.

The young genius makes sure that he practices six hours every day and hasn’t even been to school for six months now.

“I’m making up for the missed hours at school by studying at home. Thankfully my teachers have been very supportive and that’s helped me focus on sailing completely”, Chitresh told The Times of India.

Tatha is a national champion in the ‘Optimist’ category, which is a small, single-handed sailing dinghy used by children up to the age of 15. Being one of the most popular categories, there are over 1,50,000 boats registered in this class.

Thus, Tatha proves that age is just a number and one can never be too young to find their passion. We wish good luck to this young sailor and hope to see him succeed in his all his endeavours,