Sailing: Kimberly Lim and Cecilia Low finish 9th overall, first Singaporeans to qualify for medal race at Olympics
Sailors Kimberly Lim and Cecilia Low. (Photo: Facebook/Team Singapore)
TOKYO: Sailors Kimberly Lim and Cecilia Low have become the first Singaporean sailors to qualify for a medal race at the Olympics.
On Saturday (Jul 31), the duo, who are reigning Asian Games champions, finished ninth overall in the women's 49er FX event to make the cut for Monday's medal race.
Low and Lim finished in 10th but moved up a place after US sailors Stephanie Roble and Maggie Shea were disqualified for one race, and fell to twelfth position overall.
The top ten in the fleet will compete in the medal race.
“(We are) super happy, we didn't even know (we made it). On the way back we were thinking: ‘Did we make it, did we not?’” said Lim.
“When we reached the shore and we saw (Chef de mission Dr) Ben Tan and he was like you guys made it … It's pretty unreal I think.”
While Lim and Low struggled in their early races, the Singaporeans found another level from their seventh and eighth race, where they finished third and second respectively.
They went on to top the fleet in their eleventh race on Saturday, and finished 13th in their twelfth and final race.
“It's our first race win in the Olympics so we will keep that forever,” said Lim.
“For us, its just special, because winning a race is always challenging, especially in these kind of fleets ... We haven’t won a lot of races in our career on the FX so its a special one.”
And going into the medal race, the duo say they have “nothing to lose”.
“For us, we’ll give it our best shot; we have nothing to lose going into this medal race,” said Lim.
“We’ll recover (tomorrow) as much as possible, be fresh for the medal race,” added Low.
In other sailing action, Singapore’s Ryan Lo finished 21st out of 35 sailors after 10 races in the men’s laser event on Friday. Lo finished second in his final race and sixth in a race earlier this week.
Windsurfer Amanda Ng completed her Games campaign on Thursday. Ng, who had overcome injury to make the cut for the Games, finished 26th out of 27 competitors after 12 races.
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