Email
Print
ShareMumbai: "When the winds are with you, there is little that can stop you from winning," said Cdr R Mahesh, after winning the Mumbai International Match Race 2009 on Thursday. It was an out-and-out domination from the Indian Navy pilot's team which beat Farokh Tarapore 3-0 in the best-of-five finals.
Neither of the Arjuna Awardees let anything slip. But in the summit clash, Team Mahesh went for the kill. "We didn't want to let it go to the fourth race, since we let slip one race in the semis," explained a happy skipper. With a good sea breeze across the Arabian Sea, Mahesh and his crew took full advantage of the conditions.
Tarapore, though, was gracious in defeat. "You win some and you lose some, but it is 1-1 for us, we beat them in the qualifiers, they beat us now," said Tarapore. Asked what went wrong, the experienced sailor was quick to point out the fact that he miscalculated the start time in the third race, which cost him dearly.
Cdr Mahesh had anxious moments earlier in the morning when he chose Frenchman Francois Morvan's team as his opponent for the semifinals. The French team beat the tournament favourites in the first of the best of three semifinals. "That was an eye-opener and since then we decided it's time we put our foot down," explained Mahesh, who eventually beat them 2-1 to enter the finals.
In the second semis, Tarapore went on to beat Nitin Mongia's team to set up a title clash with Mahesh. If not for the French team's intervention, it would have been 1-2-3 for the Indian teams. Morvan beat Mongia 2-0 in the third place playoffs to win the bronze.
With these wins, Tarapore and Mahesh move up the world rankings. "I might move up around 20 places and Mahesh would climb 5-10 steps, we are aiming to have two teams in top 50 and eventually break in to top 20," said Tarapore.
