2015 Optimist World Championships: Zakariya emerges as Oman's top sailor
(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Fifteen year old Zakariya al Wahabi was Oman's best performer with a 101st-place finish at the 2015 Optimist World Championships that concluded in Dziwnow Poland on Friday.
After a week of tackling challenging conditions including low temperatures and light winds the team of five youngsters representing the sultanate for the first time in the world championships finished in 35th place overall from a total of 58 nations. The sailing extravaganza featured seven qualifying events and two final races.
Omani sailors compete during the final day's action at the World Optimist Championships on Friday
Zakariya logged 213 points to finish well ahead of his teammates in the week-long competition featuring 275 sailors. Al Moatasem al Farsi aged 12 collected 261 points for a 152nd-place finish. Marwan al Jabri who is 15 tallied 341 points to settle for the 198th place. Jihad al Hasani who is 11 finished 204th with a tally of 382 points.
Thirteen year old Samiya al Riyami took the 212th position overall and 42nd among the 56 girl participants after bagging 315 points.
The Omani contingent was accompanied by the national coach Abdul Aziz al Shidi and Oman Sail Youth Programme manager Marina Psichogiou.
The overall individual gold medal went to Slovakia's Rok Verderber. The 14 year old tallied 18 points. Jodie Lai of Singapore who is 13 ended runner-up with 41 points. She emerged as the best girl performer.
Coach Shidi said 'One of the best things to come out of our participation at the Optimist World Championships was that we were easily able to identify areas that we could improve on.
'Our results reflected our performances but there are areas that with a bit of work could yield even better results. It has been a valuable experience for all members of the team learning how to deal with big fleets especially on the start-line.'
Rashid al Kindi Oman Sail's national sailing team manager said 'This achievement by the team was good considering Oman was the newest country of all the countries taking part. Also we beat countries that we have lost to in the past.'
Kindi added 'We had no idea what to expect as it was our debut. The qualifying process was fierce and the competition was tough with challenging conditions. There were days of no wind and days of big winds and it was very cold as well which our sailors are not used to in Oman. But they did really well.'
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