Aneesha Nayak was the youngest surfer to reach the finals of the Women's open category in the 2nd edition of Indian Open of Surfing. She was also one of the youngest female surfers to represent India at the Asian Surfing Championship in 2015.
The 16-year-old started swimming at the age of three, and after doing so for almost a decade, she went on to become a competitive swimmer. But after competing in swimming for a few years, she was not able to adapt to the aggressive aspect of it and planned to take a break from the sport. At that point, an instructor from the Mantra Surf Club introduced her to surfing, and after trying for few weeks, she took a liking to it.
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When asked about was she scared when she started surfing, Ms Nayak said, “People thought that I would be super scared of the water and they also told me that once you will get inside ocean with the surfboard it will grab you but I was just opposite of it I was never scared of water,”
She added, “Even I’m much more comfortable in water than I'm on land,”
Along with surfing, the youngest female surfer is sharp in studies as well. The 16-year-old has scored a 92 percentage in her High-school board exams recently.
Also, she won a Bronze medal at International Science Fair (I-Sweep) in the U.S in 2016 and had also won a gold medal for India at I-Fest (International Festival of Engineering Science Technology) in 2017.
The International bronze medal winner has faced many injuries in her career till now. When asked about them, she replied, “I have suffered two serious injuries in my career, the first injury was during surfing in Lakshadweep in 2015 - I was caught in the wave, and scratched my spine because of which I got paralysed for almost about 45 minutes,”
“The second injury was just before the 1st edition of Indian open of surfing, this time I broke my ribs and was on the bed for four days, even after getting injured I participated in the competition but couldn’t win anything because of the injury,” the National surfer said.
The 16-year-old has faced many obstacles in trying to compete as well, the biggest was when her father and relatives asked her to give up surfing because they were against girls wearing small clothes and also told her that she would get tanned while surfing and nobody would marry her. But the I-Fest winner had already made her decision of being a world-class surfer.
It was her mother who supported her in taking up surfing. The National surfer told that her mother is her inspiration as she has always guided her to the right path and whatever she is today is just because of her.
Aneesha has funded her surfing career with the help of her mother but is looking for a sponsor because surfing boards and everything related to surfing costs an enormous sum of money. But getting a sponsor is not easy as the sport’s acceptance level is still pretty low in India.
Funding is one of the biggest problems that the surfers are facing nowadays. Also, it has become a reason why many surfers are choosing other sports over surfing in India. When we asked about funding problems to the surfing prodigy, she said, “There is not enough support for the surfers as most of the people are focussed on mainstream sports, if there will be more support for the surfers then India can achieve a lot in surfing.”
She also opined that surfing can be made much more popular in India with the help of a movie, “It was a surfing movie in the U.S. that helped in making surfing popular in the country, and it is an excellent manner to promote sports in any country, India should also try to make one movie on surfing as it might get much more people interested in surfing.”
She is aspiring to become a professional surfer as she wants to represent India at an International level in various competitions. When she was asked about her future plans, she said, “I want to be a Professional surfer, and my priority will always be surfing and studies is just for a backup,"
"Although people want me to make a career with the help of education because I’m good at it but my soul gets completed when I’m on my surfboard,” she added.
