TOH Liying and Deborah Ong have set sail on a new training programme as they were chosen to represent Singapore in the 470 women's event at the Beijing Olympics.

They were nominated to the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) yesterday after SingaporeSailing accepted the Unused Quota Position in the women's two-person dinghy event from the International Sailing Federation.

This is the first time that national sailors have booked a berth in the Olympics through the Unused Quota Position - awarded to the best non-qualifiers.

A superior world ranking and better results in competitions over the last 12 months saw Toh and Ong (world No 30) edge out nearest rivals Dawn Liu and Elizabeth Tan (world No 48) for the sole spot.

Toh, a third-year biomedical science student at Monash University, said: 'The hard work begins now. I've dropped everything to make sailing the No1 priority - I'm going to have to defer from school again.'

Although formal endorsement by the SNOC has not been granted yet, SNOC secretary-general Chris Chan said that no obstacles are expected as both sailors are Project 0812 athletes.

Meanwhile, the Singapore Athletic Association has decided that Zhang Guirong will go for the Beijing Games instead of sprinter Amanda Choo on a wildcard.

Shot-putter Zhang had met the Olympic 'B' qualifying distance of 17.20 metres at last December's South-east Asia Games.

The SAA had earlier said it wanted Zhang to throw within 1.5 per cent of the qualifying distance to prove her consistency.

Zhang heaved between 16.45m and 16.8m in three meets over the past few weeks.

But the association yesterday clarified that the targets were meant to push her to do well at the Olympics, and not criteria for her to go to Beijing.