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Team Red Dot’s Golden finish

INCHEON — Singapore’s 17-strong sailing squad wrapped up a successful 17th Asian Games in Incheon with the J80 Match Race quintet delivering another gold medal to bring their final tally to three gold, two silver and two bronze medals.

From left: Maximilian Soh, Russell Kan, Andrew Paul Chan and Justin Wong saw off hosts South Korea 2-0 to clinch gold.
Photo: SPORT SINGAPORE

From left: Maximilian Soh, Russell Kan, Andrew Paul Chan and Justin Wong saw off hosts South Korea 2-0 to clinch gold.
Photo: SPORT SINGAPORE

INCHEON — Singapore’s 17-strong sailing squad wrapped up a successful 17th Asian Games in Incheon with the J80 Match Race quintet delivering another gold medal to bring their final tally to three gold, two silver and two bronze medals.

The quartet of skipper Maximilian Soh, Justin Wong, Russell Kan and Andrew Paul Chan — a fifth member, Christopher Lim, doubled up as coach and reserve crew member — sailed a near-perfect campaign, chalking up 15 wins from 16 races in the round-robin stage.

At the Wangsan Sailing Marina yesterday, the Singapore boat romped to a 3-0 win over Malaysia in the semi-final before cruising to a 2-0 victory over South Korea for the gold medal.

But the celebrations of Team Red Dot — a name the match-racers have adopted to represent their roots as well as their aspirations — were muted, tempered by the knowledge that this was a victory achieved with minimal funding from the Singapore Sailing Federation.

With hopes of competing in the match racing’s professional world circuit, the team undertook a self-funded trip to the United States this year, winning back-to-back Grade 3 regattas in Chicago in July before finishing sixth overall in the four-stop Grade 2 United States Grand Slam Series in August and September.

The results saw the team rise to 26th in the International Sailing Federation world rankings.

In Incheon, the Singapore team lived up to their billing as the highest-ranked team, losing only one match to hosts South Korea, who have spent the past two years preparing for this event.

“Singapore Sailing had a budget for a training camp for us, but that was after we’d gone to the US to have more match racing experience,” said Soh. “But the training camp in Hong Kong just before coming here was great as we got familiarised with these (J80) boats.”

He added the team were fortunate Lim stepped in as coach after the SSF was unable to get one accredited in time for the Games.

For their win, Team Red Dot will receive S$320,000 under the Singapore National Olympic Council’s Multi-Million dollar Awards Programme (MAP), but Soh added they are seeking sponsors.

On the SSF’s funding policy, the association’s president Ben Tan said Olympic campaigns tend to receive more government support.

“As an analogy, does the American government fund Tiger Woods? They don’t. That’s the real professional world,” he said. “For the match racers to thrive and survive in the professional world, they must follow the same model. (But) the corporate sports sponsorship market (in Singapore) is not mature yet.

But Tan, a gold medallist in the Laser at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, stressed the SSF must help link the team up with potential sponsors. He said: “That’s the role of Singapore Sailing as a facilitator, not to use taxpayers dollars for everything.”

Nevertheless, Tan believes Team Red Dot had given Singapore a presence on the professional circuit.

He said: “Competing in the US against some of the world’s top match racers, that kind of intensive preparation sharpened their teamwork and their boat handling was super smooth.”

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