Sailing squad contribute gold medal on National Day

JAKARTA: The 61st National Day celebration yesterday was very meaningful to the national sailing squad as they collected a gold, a silver and three bronze medals in the event which drew its curtains close at the 2018 Asian Games.

Junior sailor Muhammad Fauzi Kaman Shah, 16, gifted Malaysia its sixth gold medal after winning the Open Laser 4.7 event by collecting 20 penalty points at the Indonesian National Sailing Centre.

The silver and bronze medals in the event went to China’s Wang Jianxiong (42 penalty points) and India’s woman sailor Tomar Harshita with 62 penalty points.

Another national representative in the event, Nor Nabila Natasha Mohd Nazri finished 12th out of 23 participants with 111 penalty points.

National Olympic sailor, Khairulnizam Mohd Afendy, who is the country’s first athlete to book a slot at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics 2020, settled for silver in the Laser Standard event with 23 penalty points.

He had finished with the same number of points as Singapore’s Ryan Lo Jun Han, but the jury awarded the silver to Khairulnizam after a recount.

The gold medal went to defending champion Ha Jeemin from South Korea, with 21.8 penalty points.

The squad also contributed three bronze medals, through Nur Shazrin Mohamad Latif in the Laser Radial event (36 penalty points); Nuraisyah Jamil and Norashikin Mohamad Sayed in the women’s 470 event (37 penalty points) and Illham Wahab and Nuur Fatin Solehah Abdul Rahman in the mixed RS One event (103 penalty points).

Nur Shazrin also qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The Laser Radial gold was won by Japanese sailor Doi Manami with 13 penalty points, while silver went to Chinese athlete Zhang Dongshuang who collected 36 penalty points.