NATIONAL sailors Toh Liying andDeborah Ong will represent Singapore in the women’s 470 class at the 2008 Olympic Games, which will run from Aug 8-24 in Beijing.

Yesterday, a SingaporeSailing selection committee chose Toh and Deborah over Dawn Liu and Elizabeth Tan, based on their higher world ranking and their performances over the last year.

On Monday, the International Sailing Federation (Isaf) offered Singapore an “Unused Quota Position” to boost the level of female participation in the Olympic sailing competition, which will be held in Qingdao, China, from Aug 9-21.

Singapore were the first in line to receive an unused quota position as Toh and Deborah — currently ranked world No 30 in the women’s 470 — were the highest-ranked non-qualifiers.

:Toh, 23, and 17-year-old Deborah resumed training last Saturday and SingaporeSailing will finalise the pair’s programme by this week. Despite being left with barely over a month to prepare for the Games, SingaporeSailing chief executive officer Andrew Sanders is confident that Toh and Deborah will be ready in time. “In sailing, if you’ve done it before, and as long as your fitness doesn’t drop, you can get the feel of things back very quickly,” said Sanders.

“For top sailors like them, it will probably take a few days.”

The other sailors selected for the Olympics are Koh Seng Leong (Laser Standard), Lo Man Yi (Laser Radial) and Xu Yuanzhen and Terence Koh (men’s 470). It hasn’t all sunk in yet for Toh, who is pursuing a degree at :Monash University in Melbourne.

“We first heard about the possibility of going to the Olympics on Friday, and everything’s happened so fast,” she said.

Deborah, a first-year student at Victoria Junior College, said: “The important thing now is to get used to the water again, especially as the heat and humidity now in Qingdao can be very oppressive. “The light winds expected there will mean we will spend more time out on the water.”