Guangzhou: A late arrival and non-adjustment to the conditions may have well cost the UAE's top sailor from giving himself a podium finish chance at the 16th Asian Games here.
Adel Khalid, easily one of the prospective medallists for the UAE in sailing, ended in ninth overall with a cumulative points tally of 97 at the Shanwei Water Sports Centre on Saturday evening.
Taking part in the Open Laser Radial Class, Khalid was consistently trailing sailors from Singapore, China and even India in this nine-day competition.
Keerati Bualong of Thailand went on to take the gold with 41 points in the Open Laser Radial, ahead of Hisaki Nagai of Japan who had 43 and Scott Glen Sydney of Singapore with 49 points took the bronze.
Khalid's teammate Mahmoud Al Ziadi, who at 13 years was among the youngest among the sailors here, will take a lot of experience from participating in an event of this nature and grandeur.
"For sure there are lessons to be learnt, but somehow I am left ruing and disappointed that I could not achieve what I set out to do," Khalid said.
"Basically, I doubt we gave ourselves enough of a chance by arriving in Shanwei a day before the start of the competition. We should have moved in at least ten days before the start to adjust to the sailing conditions. That way we would have been in a better position to read the conditions due to our head-start," Khalid said.
More preparations
"Most of the countries here have been preparing for the past few months coming here, whereas we were not up to the mark in our preparations coming here. The UAE squad was among the smallest at the sailing despite the fact that we come from a sea-faring nation."
Participating in the Men's Dinghy Optimist Class, Khalid's teammate Al Ziadi also ended ninth overall from the 11 participants with China's Zhang Xiaotian taking the gold with 36 points, leaving Malaysia's Ahmad Latif Ali Sabri Khan (38 points) with the silver and Ryan Lo Jun Lo of Singapore (46 points) took bronze.
"I think we need to have a re-look at the way our preparations are done during the build-up to such big competitions.
The sports officials need to sit down and introspect about a lot of things. Sports is not just about football," Khalid said.
