Malaysia sail to Optimist Team gold

LANGKAWI: Malaysia have repeated their previous SEA Games feat in Singapore when they grabbed the gold medal in the Optimist Team event.
The national team of Israr Hazim Ismail, Muhammad Syafie Ali, Muhammad Fauzi Kaman Shah, Nor Nabila Natasha Mohd Nazri and Nurul Shazwanie Mohd Saad defeated Thailand 2-1 in the final race today.
The triumph was a big relief to the national sailing squad after letting the gold medals slipped away in the laser standard team and laser radial team events.
In the laser standard team category, Malaysia took the silver after losing 0-2 to Singapore in the final while the bronze went to Thailand.
In the laser radial team final yesterday, Malaysia were the bronze medallists after losing to Thailand and Singapore in the round robin which saw only three countries competing.
Thailand later beat Singapore 2-0 for the gold in the category.
Apart from the team events, there will be 11 more gold medals in the SEA Games sailing competition until Aug 29.
The preliminary round for the men's and women's International 470 and International 420 events began today with the finals on Aug 27.
Both categories will involve 20 athletes from six countries.
A total of 12 athletes will contest in the men's and women's windsurfing RS One event starting tomorrow until Aug 28.
Competition for five other individual events namely men's and women's optimist, men's laser standard and laser redial as well as women's laser redial will begin on Thursday to Aug 29. — Bernama