Nuraisyah Jamil and Juni Karimah Noor Jamilah qualified for next year’s Tokyo Olympics after finishing fifth in the women’s international 470 event at the Asian Championships in Shenzhen yesterday.
The duo completed the event with 41 penalty points behind four Chinese teams with Fu Qian-Xu Yani (16 penalty points) winning the title.
“We followed our coach’s tactics throughout the event. We are delighted to finish ahead of other sailors from Southeast Asia in this meet,” said Nuraisyah.
“It is a great effort following our failure at the recent Philippines Sea Games. We will now focus on preparing for the Tokyo Olympics.”
The other Malaysian sailors bound for the Olympics are Khairulnizam Afendy Abdullah (laser standard) and Nur Syazrin Mohd Latif (laser radial).
In the men’s event in Shenzhen, Faizal Norizan-Ahmad Syukri Abd Aziz finished eighth with 58 penalty points while Uzair Amin Yusof-Ahmad Khairulhafiz Ahmad Khambali were placed 10th on 71.
Korea’s Gunwoo Park-Sungmin Cho (28 penalty points) won the title.
Meanwhile, Khairulnizam bounced back from his Sea Games failure by winning the laser standard event at the United Arab Emirates National Sailing Series in Dubai yesterday.
He collected six penalty points, followed by Hong Kong’s Nicholas Bezy (13) and India’s Upamanyu Dutta (15).
At the Sea Games, the sailing team, who targeted four gold, only returned with one silver and five bronze from the Philippines.