Nethra Kumanan is a strong-minded sailor with good technique - Coach Eszes

Gran Canaria, one of Spain's Canary Islands, has become a second home to ace Indian sailor Nethra Kumanan. Having started training there in the last few years, it's the place where Kumanan fine-tuned her skills, under the expert supervision of two-time Olympian Tamas Eszes, to finally book a berth for Tokyo 2020.

Kumanan made the cut in the laser radial class at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers earlier in April 2021 to become the first Indian woman to qualify in sailing at the Olympics.

"Even though I didn't qualify for Rio (Olympics qualification), I knew I was good enough even back then," Kumanan, currently at home in Chennai, said during a press conference on Thursday.

"But there were certain things, I needed to bridge the gap. These four years, especially the last year, when I was stuck in Gran Canaria at Tamas Eszes' academy during the lockdown, we worked a lot on the weaknesses. That's the reason we were able to do it (qualify) this time."

Her coach Eszes, who represented Hungary in laser standard class, is now grooming young sailors at his academy. It was in 2015, ahead of the World Championships, that he first came across Kumanan.

"I met Nethra in 2015 World Championships in Oman. She was performing well. We always keep our eyes open, try to watch who can be our future student," Eszes said.

"Our goal is to help small nations who cannot create their own team because there are not enough sailors in the country. They need more training partners. The goal is to collect talented sailors from small nations and provide a good sailing program. It's minimum six years to prepare an athlete for Olympics," he added.

Kumanan had lost touch with Eszes after the World Championships as athletes were focused on making the cut for Rio. It was in 2018 that Kumanan requested Eszes to help her prepare for Tokyo 2020.

"In 2018, Nethra reached out to us, then we helped her join our group," he said.

"Before the Olympic qualification, the request was to help Nethra. We accepted and started to fall in love with her attitude and personality. We were in Europe for six months, and were supposed to compete in Abu Dhabi but that (event) got cancelled due to Covid-19. Then she didn't want to go back to India and wanted to train with us.

"She is a tough girl and stayed in our sailbase for a year. That was really difficult. She started our training at 9:30 in the morning. It's easy to work with strong-minded athletes. We have to just motivate them.

"Nethra was already a good sailor. She has been training a lot. The key job was to fine-tune movements. She was struggling with light wind conditions. She had a good technique. But a little co-ordination movement was missing from her training," he added.

Though Kumanan has shown improvement over the years, Eszes believes she is still a long way away from a podium finish in Tokyo, especially since it will be her maiden performance. He, however, already has a plan in place for Kumanan to excel at Paris 2024.

"I am happy that she has qualified, but going to Tokyo 2020 is only our first step," he said.

"I hope she can finish in the top 15. That is a good result among 44 sailors. But this is just the beginning of our work. We have already started our work for the 2024 Olympics," the coach said.

Before Tokyo, Kumanan will head back to Gran Canaria to resume her training.

"Plan is to go back to Europe in Gran Canaria, I should fly out in three weeks. I will train with more sailors in Europe. (But) there are no more big regattas between now and Olympic Games," she added.