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Seven Optimist dinghy sailors, five boys and two girls,
all under the age of 15, have left for Singapore to participate in the
IODA Asian Optimist Championship 2007 to be held there from July 7 to
July 15.
These sailors had qualified at the recently-concluded
Chennai Port Trust National Optimist
Coastal Sailing Championship 2007 and it is a matter of distinction
that five of this contingent are from the TNSA (Tamil Nadu Sailing
Association), the other two being from Mumbai.
All the sailors have completed rigorous training at a
special two-week coaching camp run by the Yachting Association of India
and overseen by Ninad Mayekar, National Class coach, National Optimist
Association of India.
Boys:
Gaurav Pikale (CSC)
Nishanth Chandrashekar (TNSA)
Hussain Bhavnagarwala (TNSA)
Arisudan Sheth (CSC)
Gerad Ambrose (TNSA)
Girls:
Shwetha Sadanand (TNSA)
Niveditha Varman (TNSA)
The racing area will be at the south-eastern coast of the island, and
the shore venue will be the National Sailing Centre during the 2007 IODA
Asian Championship.
The championship is organised by the Singapore Sailing Federation in
conjunction with the Indonesia Sailing Federation under the authority of
the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA).
Eleven Asian countries will participate this year. There were 98
participants in 2005 and 68 in 2006. The participating countries this
year are Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand,
Qatar, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.
The championship will see mainly clear weather with wind speeds
averaging 8 to 12 knots; squalls with gusty winds are likely on one or
two days.
R Rangaraj
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