Was Singapore's Road to Rio just a cul-de-sac?

by TodayOnline on 23 Aug 2016 Singapore’s sailors and windsurfers captured the imagination in the run-up to the Olympics. In total, eight sailors and two windsurfers clinched their tickets to Rio, a feat which made the Republic’s contingent the second-largest in Asia behind Japan, who had 11 qualifiers.

Leading the way were Colin Cheng and Elizabeth Yin who qualified for their second straight Olympics as early as Sept 2014 at the ISAF World Championships. Cheng finished 27th out of 147 sailors at the Laser Standard Worlds while Yin placed 19th out of 120 in the Laser Radial.

The other sailors and windsurfers who qualified for Rio were Olympic debutants. Sailing couple Justin Liu and Denise Lim clinched their ticket in Sept 2015 when they won the Nacra 17 event at the ISAF World Cup in Qingdao, China, while Griselda Khng and Sara Tan snared one of three available Olympic spots in the 49erFX at the World Championships in November after finishing 13th out of 44 boats.

Because eight of the 10 sailors and windsurfers were Olympic debutants, they were never expected by the SSF to qualify for the medal races. Indeed, according to Chua Tan Ching, the SSF’s high performance manager, it takes about 10,000 hours of full-time sailing — or roughly 10 years — to potentially medal at the Olympics. “Our sailors are not full time so that has to be changed to get them on course to perform well and progress up the ranks,” he said. The sailors’ results also proved that they were effectively out of their depth at such a high level of competition.

Full story: http://www.todayonline.com/sports/rio-report-team-singapore-sailing