Subedar Vishnu qualifies for Tokyo Olympics in laser standard class

Bengaluru: Subedar Vishnu Saravanan of the Indian Army's Madras Engineer Group (MEG) has qualified for Tokyo Olympics in Laser Standard Class and confirmed his berth in Tokyo Olympics 2020 scheduled to start in 2021.

With an aim of securing an entry for participation in the Tokyo Olympics 2020, he underwent training at Malta, Europe under Sail Coach Academy for the past two years and now he participated in the Mussanah Sailing Championship (Asian & Africa Olympic Qualifier Event) 2020-21 at Mussanah, Oman from 01-08 Apr 2021 and then qualified for Olympics.

Subedar Vishnu Saravanan enrolled in Boys Sports Company, MEG & Centre in 2015 as a Boys Sports Cadet. His father Subedar Saravanan is a Madras Sappers Sailor. In a very short period after joining MEG Boys Sports Company, with his self-determination and support from MEG he participated in Junior National & Youth National Championships and won medals. His performance has been consistently improving and he participated in the Hongkong Sailing Week-2016 (ASAF Series - 2) and won a silver medal in Laser Class. He has till now participated in thirty international events with thirteen 'top three' finishes. He participated in ten Senior & Youth National championships and won Gold medals in all the categories. Based on the outstanding performance he was enrolled into Madras Engineer Group (MEG) as a direct entry Naib Subedar (Junior Commissioned Officer) in the year 2017.

After enrolment in the Army, Naib Subedar Vishnu Saravanan won his first Gold Medal in Senior National championship 2018 and since then he has participated in several international championships. He participated in the Laser Youth U-21 World Sailing Championship 2019 held at Croatia, Europe from 26 Oct to 02 Nov 2019 and won Bronze Medal in Laser Under-21 category where a total of 144 sailors from 41 countries participated.