Sailors seal up medals early at Asian Youth Games

by Dawn Liu, SingaporeSailing on 6 Jul 2009 One race on the Byte course and two on the Bic Technos' brought both classes up to race 10 on the fifth day of racing, and already the medals are all but sewn up. In the Byte CII boys class, Darren Choy of Singapore has already won with a race to spare; similarly Wei Bipeng of China took the gold two races in advance. Some of the silver and bronze medals are still up for grabs, though, and will be decided with the final race on 6 July.

Byte CII Boys
With a scorecard that includes only two seconds, Darren Choy has an unassailable lead at 10 points. He needed to finish with a fifth to secure his medal, but finished in style anyway, to finish off ten races with a palindrome on his points score!

Supakon Pongwichean finished with a third, which was also enough to ensure him the silver. Fifteen points below him, Malaysia's Muhamad Amirul Shafiq has a good hold on bronze, with only Indonesian Aprinanda Hasbula Simamora with a slim chance of upsetting him. As the latter will need to come first in the final race of the series while ensuring the former takes a placing worse than seventh, it is not likely that the Malaysian will let bronze slip by!

Byte CII Girls
The most contested medal in this regatta, the gold for the Byte CII girls fleet, is almost in the hands of Jittiwa Thanawitwilat of Thailand. She now has 17 points over Singapore's Najwa Jumali, and her discard is a third. This means that any position - short of an undiscardable score - in the last race will see her taking the gold.

Singapore has also solidified her silver, winning the race to end with 20 points over third-placed China's 25. The bronze medal is more hotly contested, however, with Malaysia's Khairunneeta Afendy still within reach, at three points behind China. She took fourth behind Gu Min in race 10.

Windsurfing Boys
Wei Bipeng of China continues to prove himself a cut above the rest, as he has yet to lose a single race! Behind him, Thailand, the Republic of Korea, and Hong Kong continued to tussle for silver and bronze. Thailand's Nakaret Vantana came out ahead in the day's racing, with two seconds, placing him ahead by four points.

Kim Chaneui and Kwok Tsz Him have been fighting it out both on sea and land, however, as they took their battle from race 10 into the protest room back on shore. The protest was eventually dismissed, leaving both boys tied on points with the Korean leading on count back.

Windsurfing Girls
First and second in the Bic Techno girls class has been decided well ahead of the last day, as Siripon Kaewduang-Ngam and Hao Xiumei finished with 10 and 20 points respectively, making it impossible for any of the others to catch them.

Singapore and Hong Kong fight a pitched battle for bronze, however. Each had a third and a fourth place finish in the two races. However a protest lodged by Hong Kong saw Audrey Yong disqualified in race 9, to bring the points score to a close 27 and 28 points for Singapore and Hong Kong respectively - meaning that the final bid for bronze will come down to the last race.

After an exciting five days of racing, we are now almost at the conclusion of the regatta. While the final race of the series may be a courtesy race for many of the sailors who have already put in the hard work to secure their medals, they will certainly continue to race just as hard as the sailors who are still struggling to better their positions.

Racing concludes on July 6 with the final race for all fleets, and the action is likely to be the most furious on Bravo course, among the Bic Technos. The last live blog here on www.ayg2009.sg will follow the most popular fleet chosen by its viewers. All classes are scheduled to flag off at noon.