You have hardly heard about woman skydivers in a country like India, but breaking all the stereotypes, Shital Mahajan is all set to become the first woman to skydive from North to South Pole. Shital is planning to make history by providing an opportunity to 100 women to set a world record in skydiving and scuba diving. Here are some fantastic facts about Shital Mahajan.
Sheetal is highly passionate about extreme sports and she has been a holder of five world records and 14 National records in skydiving.
Shital was introduced to skydiving by the brother of one of her friends, who was working as an air force officer. She was introduced to this sport back in 2002.
Based in Pune, Shital Mahajan is planning to create four new world records in the sky- and scuba-diving category with a 100-strong all-women contingent in April in Australia.
Shital was born to a middle-class Marathi family in India. Her mother is a house wife and father worked as a machine worker with Tata Motors. She pursued her graduation (BSc) in geology from Fergusson College, Pune.
Shital Mahajan performed her first jump over Geographic North Pole on 18 April 2004 without any practice. She then went further to get some professional training which made her the youngest woman to achieve the feat at the age of 23.
Shital is married to Vaibhav Rane, a software engineer working in Finland. They got married on a hot air balloon, 600 feet above ground, on 19 April 2008. It was the first of such kind of a wedding in India.
Mahajan was a leader of the team that created a world record as the first team to perform a free fall parachute jump over Antarctica. She has also led a team of 89 Indian skydivers to achieve a record for maximum tandem jumps in one day and also 35 tandem jumps in one hour, the jumps performed on 25 August 2014 in Spain.
Shital is a US certified A, B, C and D skydiver and trainer and is the first Indian civilian woman skydiving coach. She has been trained to jump from 6 different types of aircrafts and she has jumped from heights ranging from 2400 ft to 180000 ft height.
Shital Mahajan was awarded Godavary Gaurav Puraskar in 2005 and the same year she also received the Shiv Chatrapati Maharashtra State Sports Special Award which was followed by the Venutai Chavan Yuva Puraskar. In 2004, she also received the fourth highest Indian civilian award of the Padma Shri.
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