GAZI – After the morning briefing at 9:00am with all teams the 17th flight of the Round Robin A sarted at 10 am today, July 9th.
Directly after, the OC proceeded to the repechage for places 7,8,9 and 10 Round Robin A, for the following teams: Italy, France, Australia, the 2 teams of Greece and Poland (team of Zuzanna).
Nicole Mangelschots, FISU Asst. WUC met with the Team Manager of Singapore, Andrew Tam, who is “so excited by this competition”. This World University Match Racing Championship is the second FISU Championship for his country to take part in, after the World University Triathlon Championship in Valencia, Spain, last June.
Andrew TamAndrew Tam confirmed that Singapore is now finalising all documents to be a member of FISU at the next General Assembly. The team of skipper Lin Christopher is even more excited to be here as match racing is just becoming popular in Singapore. In fact, there is just one other team in Singapore with whom they can practise and improve their skills.
Initially, they came with the idea, to learn from top athletes here and practise with strong teams.
“What we did, said Andrew Tam, was coming two days earlier so we could practise in the Gazi Marina, in order to know the weather conditions in Crete, which helped us a lot.”
With the understanding that their weight must not exceed 350kg, the Singapore team decided to bring 5 competitors. All competitors come from the same University, the Singapore Management University, the only one who has a sailing program in Singapore. “They know each other well, which is a big asset”, said Andrew Tam.
The only problem is that they have no sailing coach. The one attending this competition is Remy Donraadt, from the University of Western Australia who came to assist them during the last two weeks.
On the first and second day of the competition they were in 5th place.
After the Round Robin A, they advanced to 3rd.
We can hardly wait for the quarter-finals! Unbelievable!
Andrew Tam said that both the coach and he are really proud of their team. They are having a lot of fun, and without experiencing too much pressure. “They have so much to learn from this competition!”
At 4:30, after drawing the boats, the first round of the quarter-finals has started but due to the lateness of the hour, the teams will continue the quarter-finals tomorrow.
(Source: Nicole Mangelschots, FISU Asst. WUC)
Team Singapore
RESULTS DAY 3