SINGAPORE — They last competed in a major regatta almost a year ago when they finished their campaign to try to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Last weekend, 49erFX pair Kimberly Lim and Cecilia Low — who did not clinch the ticket to Rio in the end — got their campaign to make it to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo off to a confidence-boosting start when they finished third out of 30 boats at the 48th Trofeo S.A.R Princess Sofia in Mallorca, Spain.

Better known as the Princess Sofia Trophy, the regatta is the opening event of the European sailing season, and also marks the start of the series of Olympic class events on the European Tour. More significantly, it is the first competition many seasoned teams compete in their Olympic campaigns as they set their sights on Tokyo 2020.

After months of training under new national skiff coach Fernando Kuo, Lim and Low said that the podium finish was “a sweet start” that reaffirmed they are moving in the right direction after all the months of hard work they had been putting in following their Rio campaign.

“We did not have high expectations heading into this as it was our first major regatta in a long while, so we are glad to have done well,” said Lim. “With the result, we are very excited and motivated to get our campaign going.”

The light wind conditions of between eight and 10 knots enabled the duo to keep up with regatta leaders Victoria Jurczok and Anika Lorenz of Germany who had finished ninth in Rio.

Jurczok and Lorenz eventually won with 47 points while Helene Naess and Marie Ronningen of Norway finished some distance away with 96 points.

Lim and Low, whose highlights during the regatta included two victories, two second-spot finishes, and two fourth spots, ended the regatta with 114 points.

“Going into the event, we did not have as much time to prepare (compared with many of the other teams) and were pretty worn out after an intense 10 days of training and race preparation. But racing is always exciting ... the adrenaline was really pumping for this one,” said Lim.

The duo will now head to Hyeres, France for the Sailing World Cup.

SingaporeSailing president Ben Tan described Lee and Lim’s result as “significant”.  

“The 49erFX standards are high and Princess Sofia is a prestigious event. Together with Griselda (Khng) and Sara (Tan)’s very credible finish at the Rio Olympics (15th out of 20 boats), this shows how quickly we’ve managed to develop our breadth and depth in a class that only recently debuted as an Olympic class.”

Singapore’s representative in the International 470 Women, Elisa Yukie Yokohama and Cheryl Teo, came in 32nd out of 42 boats. They will now focus on the South-east Asian Games at Langkawi, Malaysia, after finishing as the top South-east Asian entry.

Meanwhile, SingaporeSailing unveiled former national windsurfer Lim Han Ee as its new chief executive officer yesterday. He takes over Andrew Tam, who is rejoining the Singapore Management University as its associate director for alumni relations. Tam was an assistant director in SMU’s Student Life office when he joined SingaporeSailing in October 2015.

Lim, 39, is the founder and partner of Emerge Performance, a corporate training and leadership development consultancy. He has also worked as a sports psychologist in the US with various professional, national, All-American and Red Bull athletes, and has also undergone training at the IMG Performance Institute.