Elizabeth Yin - Photo: Wee Teck Hian

World Champion sailor admits Today award caught her off-guard

SINGAPORE — It’s been slightly over a month since national sailor Elizabeth Yin was named as Today’s Athlete of the Year for 2009, but it still hasn’t sunk in yet.

Yin won the girls’ Laser Radial world title at last year’s Volvo ISAF Youth World Sailing Championships in Brazil.

The 18-year-old’s remarkable victory helped her clinch the award over four other nominees.

On Friday, she dropped by the Today newsroom at Caldecott Broadcast Centre to receive a memento of her win from editor Walter Fernandez.

“It happened so fast, from when I was nominated to when I won it,” she said. “When I was asked about it, I thought it was just another interview.

“I only won the youth worlds title last year. That was the only regatta I won — and not many people know how we race or what goes on (during a race).”

Yin was named Today’s Athlete of the Year for 2009 on Jan 8, edging out Quah Ting Wen (swimming), Feng Tianwei (table tennis), Hariss Harun (football) and Jasmine Ser (shooting).

Also present on Friday were her mother Ang Poh Li, SingaporeSailing president Low Teo
Ping and MediaCorp NewsHub’s executive sports editor Leonard Thomas.

All the visitors were also presented a copy of Today Then & Now coffee table book.

Yin, who is awaiting her A-level results, leaves for Sydney on Sunday to attend university. “This year, I’ll be focusing mainly on my studies. I will be training a lot more but taking part in less regattas,” she said.

A GRAND hat -trick
Already with two world titles under her belt — the 2006 Byte youth crown and the 2008 Laser
4.7 title — the former Victoria Junior College student completed her hat-trick when she beat 37
other competitors in Brazil to take the women’s Laser Radial world youth crown last July.

She hopes the award will help SingaporeSailing — the sport’s national body here — lobby for more funding.

Although among the highest funded national sports associations — SingaporeSailing will receive about $1.5 million in annual grants from the SSC for the current fiscal year — funding remains a concern as they have over 1,000 sailors ranging from entry-level, junior programmes to the elite Olympic squad.

“The budget is quite tight now in SingaporeSailing, so hopefully there can be more funding
for things like overseas training,” she said.

Low believes Yin’s award will spur the other sailors to achieve similar success.

“An award like this helps provide the impetus for our sailors wanting to excel in the sport,” Low, 65, told MediaCorp. The lead up, the way Today carried out the competition of identifying the athlete of the year, there was this rallying around of the sailors which united everyone.

“They went around asking people to support her. That was a very good exercise in getting all the sailors being collegiate.
“We’ve always felt our sailors can do Singapore proud in what they do. Elizabeth went to the Youth Worlds, the second most important sailing event after the Olympics, and to win a gold there is not something you can achieve every year.”