Sailing: Kimberly Lim and Cecilia Low finish 9th overall, first Singaporeans to qualify for medal race at Olympics

TOKYO — Sailors Kimberly Lim and Cecilia Low have become the first Singaporean sailors to qualify for a medal race at the Olympics.

On Saturday (July 31), the duo, who are reigning Asian Games champions, finished ninth overall in the women's 49er FX event to make the cut for Monday's medal race. 

Low and Lim finished in 10th, but moved up a place after United States sailors Stephanie Roble and Maggie Shea were disqualified after the race. 

The top 10 in the fleet will compete in the medal race.

“(We are) super happy; we didn't even know (we made it). On the way back, we were thinking: ‘Did we make it, did we not?’” said Lim.

“When we reached the shore and we saw (chef de mission) Ben Tan and he was like you guys made it… It's pretty unreal.”

While Lim and Low struggled in their early races, the Singaporeans found another level from their seventh and eighth race, where they finished third and second respectively. 

They went on to top the fleet in their 11th race on Saturday and finished 13th in their twelfth and final race.

“It's our first race win in the Olympics, so we will keep that forever,” said Lim.

“For us, it's just special, because winning a race is always challenging, especially in these kinds of fleets... We haven’t won a lot of races in our career on the FX, so it's a special one.”

And going into the medal race, the duo say they have “nothing to lose”.

“We’ll give it our best shot,” said Lim.

“We’ll recover (on Sunday) as much as possible, be fresh for the medal race,” added Low.

In other sailing action, Singapore’s Ryan Lo finished 21st out of 35 sailors after 10 races in the men’s laser event on Friday. Lo finished second in his final race and sixth in a race earlier this week.

Windsurfer Amanda Ng completed her Games campaign on Thursday. Ng, who had overcome injury to make the cut for the Games, finished 26th out of 27 competitors after 12 races. CNA

For more stories like this, visit cna.asia.

Catch the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 LIVE with 14 dedicated channels on meWATCH. Sign in now at mewatch.sg/tokyo2020 and get into the action with Mediacorp, Singapore’s Olympics Network.