Singapore's day on the water

It was a red-and-whitewash on the final day of competition as Singapore dominated the racing at Doha Sailing Club, taking their total sailing medal tally to 10. In time honoured fashion they celebrated by throwing their coaches, and each other, into the water after racing.

After a few days of stronger conditions, today's racing was held under partly cloudy skies that slowly became greyer and in a wind that slowly became lighter as the day wore on. The last races were in very light conditions indeed.

Singapore was victorious in both men's and women's 420 classes and took a last-minute win in the match racing; while Korea and Japan took a gold medal each in the 470 classes. Thai brothers Sakda and Damrongsak Vongtim took gold in the Hobie 16 class, while the silvers and bronzes were well spread through the nations.

Kim Daeyoung and Jung Sungahn from Korea entered the final race of the men;'s 470 with a 12-point lead, having already secured the gold medal. The two-time Asian Games men's 470 gold medallists made history as the first sailors to win a consecutive gold medal treble. They took gold with an 18-point lead, winning the final race of the competition.

Jung is pleased, but feels he has done enough, "I won my first gold medal at the Bangkok 1998 Games. At the time I didn't know much about the whole sailing thing.

"I won my second gold medal in Busan at the 2002 Games, at the time it was my home nation, I thought it was a little bit easy for me.

"This third gold medal was so difficult for me I earned this gold medal with a lot of effort.

"I'm thinking I will retire from the 470 class. I'm going to teach my fellow sailors and foster the next generation."

Singapore's Terence Koh and Yuan Zhen Xu took the silver medal with a disappointing seventh place finish. But they had no real hopes of catching the Korean duo.

Koh explained, "In the last two races we thought we had a chance to overtake them. After the second last race (race 11) race where we had a DNE (disqualification) it destroyed us. Congratulations to the Korean team."

Japan's Kenichi Nakamura and Kan Yamada claimed the bronze medal while four-time Asian Games medallist Farokh Tarapore and his team mate Vikas Kapila from India had to be content with a fifth place finish overall.
Japanese duo Ai Kondo and Naoko Kamata won gold in the women's 470 after blitzing the whole competition, winning 11 out of 12 races. This is only Japan's second gold in a women's class in Asian Games history. The previous gold medal in this class was 16 years ago at Beijing 1990.

Ai Kondo reported after she came off the water, "It's my first medal at an international event, I am so happy.

"Sailing is a minor sport in Japan. I hope this medal will bring recognition to sailing in Japan."

"The conditions were light throughout the event. That was good for us."

But they could have made it 12 out of 12, except that they were late getting to the start in one race, "We were late at the start so we couldn't catch the other boats, after this race we paid more attention and never made the same mistake again."

The battle for silver and bronze was very tense with Singapore's Liying Toh and Elizabeth Tan finishing on equal points with China's Yu Chunyan and Wen Yimei. Singapore won on a count back and China had to settle for bronze.

Proving the strength of Singapore's youthful team, Shermon Cheng and Justin Liu finished eight points ahead of the silver medallists in the junior two handed class, the men's 420.

Japan's Shibuki Iitsuka and Shingen Furuya bagged the silver medal with Myanmar's Min Min and Nay La Kyaw taking their country's first medal of the competition.

In the women's 420 Singapore's Sarah Tan and Tze Ting Lim entered the last race as the confirmed gold medallists because their 10-point lead after 11 races was impossible to close. Just to rub it in they won race 12 to emerge with a record of 10 wins from 12 races.

Yumi Takahashi and Kae Tsugaya from Japan took silver, their score doubling that of the strong Singaporeans, while Myanmar's second medal of the competition went to Su Sandar Wai and April Aung.

Thai brothers and defending gold medallists Damrongsak and Sakda Vongtim secured the gold medal easily. Finishing second in the final race they maintained the four-point lead they had over the Korea duo after 11 races.

Unsatisfied with their chance of silver medal instead of gold, Park Kyutae and Sung Changil sailed an immaculate final race, but their win was not enough to claim the gold as the twins finished just behind them.
Singapore duo Pei Quan Chung and Melcolm Huang were visibly frustrated with their bronze medal after finishing fourth in the final race of the competition.

Korea beat Thailand in two straight races in the match racing to claim the bronze medal and Korea's third medal of the day. Korea won a medal of every colour at Doha Sailing Club on 13 December.

After winning one race each in the final match racing feud, Singapore and India fought another two head-to-head races, with Singapore's five-person team emerging victorious. The final race was particularly tense with India's last minute penalty costing them the gold medal.

Ivan Tan, one of the winning Singapore crew described the race and how the team came together, "Awesome, awesome, the whole unit just functions together. We are such a great team. I have never been to anything like this [Asian Games]. I had the opportunity to come here and it has just been the best experience.

"It was very, very close. We led for most of the race. We were first to the first bottom mark, then we got some breeze and took off, then they got breeze.

"At the bottom mark we called water on them (had to allow buoy room), then they lifted (got a wind shift).

"Just metres from the finish line, we jibed on port and they were on starboard so we had to give them right of way, but while we were giving them room they jibed back onto us infringing the right of way rule so they had to do a turn and that allowed us to win the race.

"The results show who is on top, but they don't show how close the races have been. Today [Wednesday, 13 December] it came down to who sailed a little bit better, and we somehow managed to sail a bit better."

15th Asian Games, Doha 2006