KUMANAN Nethra

General
TRAINING ABROAD
In 2019 she began training with the European Sailing Academy in Gran Canaria, Spain. "I trained with a lot of quality international sailors that helped me a lot. The academy in Gran Canaria has a well qualified team surrounding the athletes. All of us benefited immensely from the environment that they've worked hard to build. The training also depends on the season. If we are in the off-season, we work a lot on our technique, doing a lot of long runs, working on improving the focus and getting the speed right. And then when it comes closer to the racing season, we work a lot on the starts of the manoeuvres like turning the board and strategising and playing with the sleeves and racing those things." (Instagram profile, 18 Mar 2023; hindustantimes, 07 Feb 2022; gosportsfoundation, 14 Oct 2021; olympics, 01 Aug 2021; timesofindia.indiatimes男子棍术, 25 Jul 2021; sportstar.thehindu男子棍术, 11 Apr 2021, 07 Apr 2021)

PARENTAL GUIDANCE
Her father runs an IT company, and assists her by providing analysis of her results and those of her rivals. "My parents are my rocks. Dad enjoys doing his part of the research, where I stand compared to the others and analysing the results and facts that he comes across. With the feedback I give him, he puts two and two together. If we ever feel like this dream is unrealistic, which was the case after the Rio 2016 [Olympic] qualifiers when I quit for a year, he will let me know and bring me back to earth." (olympicchannel, 08 Apr 2021, 25 Mar 2021)

BORROWED BOAT
Her boat was damaged in transit ahead of the Asian Olympic qualifiers at the 2021 Mussanah Open Championship in Oman. Her coach suggested she exchange boats with her teammate Ram Milan Yadav, and she used Yadav's boat to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games. "He [Yadav] was nice enough to understand that at the end of the day, it was about one of us winning an Olympic berth and helpfully gave me his boat. It was really a team effort." (espn, 09 Apr 2021)

FURTHER EDUCATION
She has studied mechanical engineering at the SRM Institute of Science and Technology in India. (srmist, 08 Sep 2021; Facebook profile, 28 Aug 2019)

She became the first female sailor to represent India at the Olympic Games when she competed in the Laser Radial class at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. (SportsDeskOnline, 18 Apr 2022)