Sail-World.com : 1st Asian Youth Games - Thailand Looking Strong After Day 3
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1st Asian Youth Games - Thailand Looking Strong After Day 3 |
Storms on the horizon saw more breeze on the courses for the third day of racing at the National Sailing Centre. The Byte CIIs and Bic Technos flagged off to start near 1pm, after another postponement in the morning. Fortunately, the thunderstorms kept their distance until three in the afternoon, just as the last boats finished their second race, following which there was a mad rush back to shore before the thunder and lightning could close in.
Two races successfully completed on both courses now brings the total number of races to 7 for the Bytes and 6 for the Bic Technos - now at the halfway mark for the regatta.
Windsurfing Boys
Having amassed a lead of 9 points, Wei Bipeng sits comfortably at the top of the scoreboard. With almost half the regatta over, the Chinese windsurfer can be reasonably certain of a medal position. He will not need to worry too much about defending from the others, however, as his nearest competitors will be locked in a close fight for the coveted podium positions. At 14 points, the Republic of Korea's Kim Chaneui is only just ahead of Thailand's Vantana Nakaret and Hong Kong's Kwok Tsz Him, both on 15 points.
Meanwhile, Shasha Krishna Murti put in an excellent effort to finish second in the last race of the day, bringing him up to fifth. The Indonesian boy started the day at the bottom of the charts. His fine showing in race 6 earned him much admiration from all the coaches and competitors as he crossed the line to cheers and encouragement from them.
Windsurfing Girls
Thailand's Siripon Kaewduang-Ngam has reclaimed the top spot after two bullets today, putting her four points ahead of Hao Xiumei of China after one discard. The latter, whose back has been troubling her, had a dismal day with two fourths, but will have the lay day to recover.
Singapore's Audrey Yong continues to maintain her third position, a point ahead of Man Ka Kei from Hong Kong. Both girls had a third and a second in the races. Both Audrey and her coach, Chua Tan-Ching, were delighted with her performance. According to Chua: 'This is her and Jun Ler's initial big event, it's just short of a world championship. They don't have much pressure aside from their own desire to win spurring them on, which is fantastic motivation.'
Byte Boys
The battle remains intense between Singapore and Thailand for the Byte boys' crown. Each had a first and and second placing, which sees Darren Choy maintaining a three-point lead over the Thai. Supakon Pongwichean has already used his discard on his fourth in race 3, however, while Choy has shown excellent consistency across all races with his worst race being a second.
Muhamad Amirul Shafiq of Malaysia started the day poorly with a sixth, but improved on his position in the second race to keep his third placing overall.
Byte Girls
The third day of racing saw Singapore and China exchanging positions yet again. While Jittiwa Thanawitwilat of Thailand defended her first position with a second and third, Najwa Jumali of Singapore suffered from the Thai's close cover in the first race as Malaysian Khairunneeta Afendy was able to slip by both of them to take line honours for race 5.
Although Gu Min of China finished only fourth for the first race, her win of the second allowed her to move up over Jumali, who is now third, two points behind. Afendy remains fourth with 19 points.
After today's performance, Thailand remains favoured for the Nation's Trophy. Thailand is leading in both female classes and fighting for a silver and bronze in the boys Byte CII and Bic Techno class respectively. Sailing team manager for Thailand, Veerasit Puangnak, said: 'I'm really happy. This is the first time Thailand is in the running for a Nation's Cup. we've never hoped for it before, only focused on the good performance for the individual sailors.'
China is next in line for the Nation's Trophy, with Singapore third.
Having reached the mid-point of the regatta, the sailors now have a day off on July 3 before returning to the seas for race 7 and 8 for the Bic Technos and Bytes respectively.
by Dawn Liu, SingaporeSailing
1:47 PM Thu 2 Jul 2009 GMT
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