Nethra Kumanan wins sailing bronze, ends long Asian Games wait

India’s Nethra Kumanan won bronze in the women’s dinghy at the Asian Games, securing her first sailing medal at the continental event. She finished third with 14 points, while Vishnu Saravanan placed fourth in the men’s dinghy event.

Gamagori: India sailor Nethra Kumanan won bronze in the women’s dinghy, ending her 12-year wait for a podium finish after seventh, fifth and fourth place finishes at the previous three editions of the Asian Games.

Nethra finished with 14 points after the two-race final series at the Kaiyoh Yacht Harbor. Thailand’s Sophia Montgomery won gold with five points, while Singapore’s Jania Ang took silver with 13.

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It is India’s third sailing medal at Aichi-Nagoya 2026, following the men’s skiff silver won by Manu Francis and Prince Kurisinkal Noble and the women’s skiff bronze claimed by Harshita Tomar and Shital Verma.

Nethra entered the finals with seven recalculated points from the qualification series held earlier in the week.

In Final 1, Nethra finished in sixth place (adding six points) but responded by winning Final 2 (adding one point), a result that lifted her into third place overall.

Nethra finished level on 14 net points (seven points each from the qualification series and the finals) with Hong Kong’s Stephanie Norton, but took bronze on the tie-break after holding the better head-to-head record across the series.

Nethra created history in 2021 by becoming the first Indian woman sailor to qualify for the Olympics, securing her berth for Tokyo 2020 through the Mussanah Open Championship in Oman. She qualified again for Paris 2024.

Elsewhere on Friday, Vishnu Saravanan, also a two-time Olympian, finished fourth in the men’s dinghy with 21 points. Ha Jee-min of the Republic of Korea won the gold medal with nine net points, while Khairulnizam Mohd Afendy of Malaysia took the final step of the podium with 14 net points.

Saravanan won a bronze medal at the previous Asian Games in Hangzhou.

However, India’s canoe slalom campaign ended without a medal. A total of five Indians competed across five medal events – men’s kayak singles, men’s kayak cross, women’s canoe singles, women’s kayak singles and women’s kayak cross.

India’s best result came in the men’s kayak singles, with Pradhyumna Singh Rathod finishing sixth amongst 10 finalists with a score of 125.21 with a time penalty of six.