IODA Asian Championship - Breaking the 100 mark
by IODA on 4 Jul 2010
IODA Asian Championship International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA)
http://www.optiworld.org/
The IODA Aasian Championship is underway in Pattaya, Thailand and runs from July 3rd until July 11th. The event is being hosted by the Junior Sailing Squadron of Thailand with the Royal Varuna Yacht Club as the nautical venue.
101 sailors are registered to compete.
July 3rd - Day 1
This will be the second largest entry for an IODA Asian Championships with the entry breaking the 100 mark. The largest ever entry was last year's Asians, held in Malaysia at the same venue for the Worlds in 2010.
It is very pleasing to see Iran competing again after their first Championship in 2009. Philippines, with assistance from the IODA Regional Regatta Grant scheme, is also attending with 2 sailors after an absence of a number of years. Sadly there will be no team from CHN.
It is also very encouraging to see a team of 2 Papua New Guinea sailors attending and Carlos Robles from ESP who finished second overall at last year’s Asians has returned.
It is impressive how multi tasked the jury are as three of them have been helping in weighing boats as part of measurement.
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July 1st - Early arrivals
101 is the number of sailors registered to compete in the IODA Asian Championship starting in two days. Hosted by the Junior Sailing Squadron of Thailand with the Royal Varuna Yacht Club as the nautical venue, this event is key for a region with a great sailing potential. Since China got the first ever Asian Optimist World Champion in 2004, sailors from many Asian countries have been seen leading the scoreboard of many major regattas around the world: Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are clear examples of the tendency. This is considered one of the reasons for the increasing number of sailors from Asian and non Asian countries that are eager to compete in the event. For this edition, sailors will represent four continents:
ASIA: Sri Lanka, Japan, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Malaysia, India, Iran, Qatar and Thailand;
OCEANIA: Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea;
EUROPE: Slovenia, Spain and Netherlands; and
AFRICA: South Africa
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