Nethra Kumanan is the first Indian woman to qualify for the Olympics and also the first Indian sailor to get a direct entry into the Summer Games. Nethra Kumanan is the 10th Indian to qualify for a sailing event at an Olympics, but her achievement is a bit more special. Nethra Kumanan is the first woman from India to do so and significantly, the first Indian sailor to have booked a place at the Olympics directly and that too by topping a qualifying event for the Summer Games. The nine Indians before her managed to get to the Games only because the quotas were not filled up. Some even moved up from the waiting list. All of them, of course, were men. Most importantly, Nethra Kumanan earned her spot at the Tokyo Olympics in the Laser Radial category after she led the 10-race series at the Mussanah Open Championship in Oman convincingly in April 2021. In the medal round, she finished sixth and was placed second overall. Such was Nethra’s performance that she had all but booked her place on the penultimate day of the Asian qualifiers held at the Millennium Resort in the oldest sultanate situated on the Persian Gulf. Listen to her talk to Rica Roy in the Podcast Guts, Glory, Gumption – the voice of Indian Sports on the RedFM India App.

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