Meet the Masters: An all-women team from India gears up for the World Championships

The Hindu

5 days ago

The sun is beating down on Besant Nagar beach on Saturday morning, and while people are carefully choosing to sit or stand under the scattering of trees nearby, a group of women is hard at work — deftly passing a frisbee, and sprinting across the sand.
This all-women team, the Team India Masters Women, has players from different cities including Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and Chennai, who have come together for their monthly camp in Chennai in the run-up to the World Beach Ultimate Championships (WBUC) in Portimão, Portugal, from November 16 to 22.
'This is the first time that India is sending an all-women team in the Masters category for an international tournament. In the Masters category, all players have to be above the age of 30, and we have players between the ages of 30 and 50 years,' says Smithi Manickam, the team's coach.
A player with the Chennai-based Flywild club for ten years now, Smithi, says that in addition to monthly camps in Chennai and specific training plans, their focus is on creating a strong statement at the world championships. 'It is also important that the players have a great campaign overall. Many of our women players have a host of responsibilities, including their careers and families, and they are juggling all of this along with their love for the sport,' she says of her team.
The players all have diverse careers and interesting stories of how they discovered the sport and have seen it evolve over the years.
At 49 years old, Priya Thineshan — a player with Puyal, a Chennai-based club and the oldest member of the team — says she discovered Ultimate when she was 42 and has not looked back since. 'Growing up, I had always been interested in sports and was looking for a way to get back to it. My family, and my children in particular, have been most encouraging about this,' says Priya, who subtitles films.
While Ultimate Frisbee is a rare mixed-gender sport, Nimisha Vasava, a 32-year-old showroom manager from Ahmedabad, says that this is something she cannot stop bragging about. Her teammate, actor Gayathrie Shankar — who first discovered the sport as a great way to use the beach when she moved to Chennai — says she has seen this aspect evolve for the better through the years.
'From being asked to join teams that simply needed to meet the minimum number of women required, to being a part of an all-women team that is now going international, has been amazing,' she says.
A professor at IIM-Bengaluru, Sreelata Jonnalagedda first learnt the sport from her students, and later, as she began taking her daughter to practice sessions. 'Playing Ultimate Frisbee gave me a reason to be fit, and the best thing about the sport is truly the variety of things you can do. As an all-women team, we can take on a host of different roles, and of course, the bonding and sisterhood here are unparalleled,' she says.
For Smithi, it has been inspiring as a coach to see the grit and determination of her team. Given that the team will be coming together for monthly camps till November in Chennai, there is a lot more intense training, practice games to be played, and team-building in store for them.