Puttur girls shine at international surfing championship

MANGALORE : Sinchana Gowda (12) and Anisha Nayak (13) from Puttur taluk in the district created history by winning the second and third position respectively in the Covelong point classic, an international surfing championship held at Chennai.
The event was organized by Surfing Federation of India (SFI) under the International Surfing Association (ISA). The girls were pulled into surfing a year ago by their swimming coach, Partha Varanashi.
Partha, who learnt surfing in Australia, told TOI that Sinchana and Anisha along with few others, started their training under a national medalist surfer Dhruva Das of Mantra Surf club at Balavana Swimming pool in Puttur.“On weekdays, they would learn to paddle, balance on skate board, duck dive and work on their strength and conditioning. On weekends, they were taken to the beach at Mulki and Bekal for training. There they would learn to face the waves,” said Partha.
The hard work put in by these young surfers and their parent’s dedication paid off when both of them seized the podium place at the Covelong point classic surf championship, he said. “In round one (heats), both Sinchana and Anisha, were up against two surfers from Australia and Russia. However, our girls fought hard and entered the finals.
In the finals, they were up against Ishita Malavya, who is India’s first female surfer and Suhasini Damian of Auroville. Suhasini from Auroville took the spot light with her smart move.
In the last five minutes, she started to surf on the left where the wave formation was better. She rode two waves beautifully to score high points and won the championship with Rs 15,000 cash price and a NSP surf board worth Rs 35,000.
While Sinchana won the second place and Rs 10,000, Anisha bagged the third place with Rs 5,000 cash price.
They both are class VIII students of Sudana Residential High School, Puttur.