Watch: Sailing champ Vishnu Saravanan's training in slow motion

Vishnu Saravanan will compete in the Men's Laser Standard Class at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. The army man has worked extremely hard to win an Olympic spot. His father Ramachandran Saravanan, a retired subedar who couldn't pursue sailing professionally, coached him early in his career. Vishnu Saravanan has been training in Malta for the last two years under Olympian sailor Alexandr Denisiuc.

The sailing team was the first among the Indian contingent to reach Tokyo. The Indian sailors have started their preparations right away. Sports Minister Anurag Thakur shared Vishnu Saravanan's training video on Twitter. Here's more on that and Vishnu Saravanan's journey to the Olympics.

How Vishnu Saravanan qualified for the Olympics

Vishnu Saravanan comes from a family of sailors. This motivated him to pick up the sport. In 2014, Vishnu was selected into the Madras Engineers Group. Finding success early, he became the national youth champion in 2016. Later that year, he bagged silver in the Hong Kong series.

His entry into the Indian army changed his career. With the army's support, he recorded his first major triumph at the national championship in 2018. He won a bronze medal at the U-21 World Championships in Croatia. This set him up for the Olympic qualifiers in Abu Dhabi, which were canceled due to the pandemic.

But when tournaments resumed, Vishnu Saravanan made the most of it. He came second at the Mussanah Open Championship held in Oman to seal a place at the Tokyo Olympics.

Speaking at a virtual media interaction organized by SAI, Saravanan said:

“I will be happy to finish in the top 50 per cent. There’s no pressure because we know we’re not there yet. We are young and have room to learn more. The whole nation has so much hope on us but we have to be cool-minded like MS Dhoni and do our job."