Meet Varsha Gautham.. Asia's Silver Medalist in Sailing

Alexandria International Sailing Championship started yesterday, Wednesday with the participation of players from Egypt (the host country), India, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Greece, and France.

The Egyptian team is represented by players from the Egyptian Yacht Club in Alexandria that recently contracted the Indian coach Varsha Gautham. On this occasion, SEE met the coach.

Varsha started sailing when she was eight-year-old. She began competing internationally when she turned 13 and was being coached by Pete Conway who told her: "The more commitment you give to sailing, the better you will become".

So in order to make good results, along with her coach she started sailing six days a week and training a lot. In 2014 and after winning the National Games, Warsha qualified to the Asian Games where she obtained the bronze medal. The gold medalist was Thailand and the silver medal went to Singapore. In the Asian Games for the year 2018, she was the silver medalist, gold and bronze went to Singapore and Thailand, respectively.

Varsha also spoke about how she started her journey with the Egyptian group:" I work for a company called Toplevel Sailing, a coaching organization for sailing that train international sailors. The Egyptian Yacht Club in Alexandria got in touch with the company asking for a coach to train the kids through the summer sailing program. This is how I came here   and I started last July."

When was asked about the level of the Egyptian sailors whom she is training, her answer was: "Success will not happen in a blink of an eye. However; the Egyptian sailors are on the right path and I believe that I they continue what they are doing now, they are going to fulfill their goals very soon."

Regarding the sport on an Asian level, she added: "I think China and Singapore are doing really well. China is a big county and exerts efforts towards developing the sport. Singapore is relatively small, but their schools support sailing. There, kids finish their school early so they can go sailing after. In other words, sailing is part of their culture."

"I am studying to become a sports physiologist, this is my plan for the near future," she summed up.