Plain sailing in Langkawi as squad of 24 check in

It’s all smooth sailing at the National Sailing Centre in Langkawi with the 24-strong squad reporting to camp on the first day of training after the lockdown.

The group included four sailors who have qualified to the Tokyo Olympic, sparring partners, coaches and officials. They all had swab samples taken before signing in.

The four athletes who have qualified to the Tokyo Olympic are Khairulnizam Affendy and teammate Nur Shazrin Mohd Latif in the laser standard and laser radial events, and Nuraisyah Jamil and Juni Karimah Noor Jamali in the women’s International 470 class.

National team coach Mohd Afendy Abdullah said the athletes would have no problems adapting to standard operating procedures set by the National Sports Council (NSC).

He said the initial part of training would focus on polishing up the basics.

“The sailors have not trained at sea since March so they need to start from the scratch but I don’t think they will need a long time to rediscover their touches as they are all very experienced,” said Affendy, who is Olympian Khairulnizam’s father.

“The sailors have been training at home before joining the camp so their fitness just needs a bit of polishing. Since the movement control order (MCO), I have been monitoring Nizam’s condition and ensured that he stayed in shape. I think he’s in the best shape now and we need to focus on sailing skills now.”

“I don’t see adhering to the SOPs set by the NSC as a problem. Some of it have been norms that we have long practised so it’s nothing new to us. We just needed to adapt to some new SOPs like social distancing.”

Affendy added the sailing team was supposed to be in Japan to train for the Olympics but the postponement of the Games to next year has changed their training plans.

“With a year to go before the Olympics, we were supposed to train in Japan but travelling abroad is still not ideal so we will have to do with the resources available to us,” said Affendy.