KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 — National sailor Khairulnizam Mohd Afendy has managed to stay on track to achieve the target set for him at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics despite the strong winds and rough seas in his first six races.
National coach Mohd Afendy Abdullah, who has set him a top-20 target, said Khairulnizam’s prospect would be bright if he could stay among the top 15 sailors in each of the remaining four races at the Enoshima Yacht Harbour in Tokyo.
However, the last two races are scheduled to be held on Friday (July 30) at mid-afternoon and Mohd Afendy, based on his observation, fears that Khairulnizam could be derailed by the slow speed of the wind at that time.
“There are no problems with the seventh and eighth races as they will start earlier but on Friday, they will start at 2.30pm local time (1.30pm Malaysian time) and that’s when the wind begins to subside,” he told Bernama today, adding that he was satisfied with Khairulnizam’s performance thus far.
In today’s action, the 2014 and 2018 Asian Games silver medallist recorded positive results in each of his three races, finishing 29th in Race Four, 18th in Race Five and 13th in Race Six.
After six races, the 28-year-old is in 26th spot out of 35 sailors, with 99 net points. Pavlos Kontides of Cyprus tops the overall standings with 18 net points, followed by Australian Matt Wearn (27 pts) and Brazilian Robert Scheidt (33 pts).
Meanwhile, in the women’s Laser Radial event, young national sensation Nur Shazrin Mohamad Latif continued to struggle to repeat her excellent opening day performance on Sunday (July 25) and ended the day in 30th position in Race Five and 34th spot in Race Six.
This sees Nur Shazrin, 23, amassing 105 net points to drop six spots to 24th, with four more races remaining.
Denmark’s Anne-Marie Rindom tops the ranking with 22 net points followed by Sweden’s Josefin Olsson (34 pts) and Dutchwoman Marit Bouwmeester (35 pts). — Bernama
