Representing Singapore: from left to right: Russell, Darren, Andrew, Luke & Rachel

Singapore’s Optimist sailors, Darren Choy, Russell Kan, Rachel Lee, Luke Tan and Andrew Tang, have just won the silver medal in the team-racing event at the 2008 IODA Optimist World Sailing Championship in Cesme, Turkey.

Singapore beat Italy in the first match and went on to win the next three races against Sweden, New Zealand and Puerto Rico before earning a spot in the finals. Puerto Rico emerged top from the losers’ pool to meet Singapore in the final sail-offs. The winner was decided by the best of three races. The two teams battled it out and Puerto Rico won the deciding race by a hair.

The results of each nation's best four sailors in races 1-5 are used to seed teams for the team-racing event. The best 16 nations competing in the team-racing event were:

New Zealand
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Germany
Italy
France
Denmark
Uruguay
Turkey
Japan
Norway
Sweden
Singapore
Spain
Netherlands
Bermuda

Missing from the list are last year's champions, Greece.

The team representing Singapore are:
Russell KAN, 15
Darren CHOY, 14
Andrew TANG, 12
Luke TAN, 15
Rachel LEE, 14
Jefri ISMAIL (Team Manager)
Edwin LOW (Country Representative)
Fernando ALEGRE (Coach)

Their current individual positions are:
Russell – 7th / 250
Rachel – 33rd / 250
Luke – 58th / 250
Darren – 123rd / 250
Andrew 150th / 250

Individual fleet racing resumes on Tuesday till 24 July.

For more information on the Optimist World Championship, visit http://www.optiworld2008.com