Two golds as sailors hit medal rush

INCHEON — A day that began with little wind at the Wangsan Sailing Marina in Incheon ended with a rush of medals for Singapore at the 17th Asian Games as the sailors delivered two gold, two silver and two bronze medals to maintain the Republic’s strong record in the sport at the quadrennial meet.

Kimberly Lim and Savannah Siew sealed gold in the women’s 420, completing the 12-race programme with six wins and never finishing worse than third, while Jodie Lai, 13, won the women’s Optimist event, a first-ever Asian Games gold for Singapore in this class.

Singapore also won silver in the women’s 29er through siblings Cecilia and Priscilla Low, and Raynn Kwok in the men’s Optimist, as well as bronze from Colin Cheng (men’s Laser) and the duo of Loh Jia Yi and Jonathan Yeo (men’s 420).

For 18-year-olds Lim and Siew, Incheon is their final outing as a pairing as they will head into different Olympic classes, having enjoyed a successful partnership which yielded gold at the 2013 SEA Games and the under-18 category at the Ladies World Championships, and silver in the Open category for the latter competition.

“It’s surreal ... a really, really good feeling to end off on such a high,” said 2011 Optimist world champion Lim, who is set to team up with Cecilia Low in the 49er FX.

“This is (the result of) three years of preparations for this event, so we were just doing what we know best and not thinking too much of the outcome, which really helped us.”

Siew, who will partner former windsurfer Amanda Ng in the 470, added: “We’ll miss each other, but it’s quite hard (to stay together) as we both have our plans for what to do in the Olympic classes.”

Singapore Sailing Federation president Ben Tan said Lim and Siew — both are from Raffles Institution — are on a progression path to greater things, with an eye on success at the Olympics. “The Olympic standard is very high, but the important thing is they are mindful of that and have already done a ‘gap analysis’ of what they need to do,” he said.

For Jodie, a Secondary 1 student at Raffles’ Girls School, it had not been easy to wait for more than two days before resuming racing — Saturday was a rest day, while fleet racing was called off on Sunday due to lack of wind.

“I really wanted to get the races over and done with, and everyone was nervous having to wait an extra day. We rigged up our sails and played cards while waiting,” said Jodie. “When I came here, I just thought of giving my all and see how the results might be.”

Singapore’s performance means they keep their strong record in sailing at recent Asian Games — the Republic topped the regatta at the 2006 Doha Games with five golds, three silvers and two bronzes, and finished the 2010 Guangzhou Games with two golds, two silvers and four bronzes.

They can add to their medal haul in the J80 open match racing on the final day of competition today. Singapore’s five-man team skippered by Maximilian Soh face Malaysia in the semi-finals as top seeds after winning 15 of their 16 round-robin matches.