Good show by holders India

The sailors lose ground in the opening race but come back well to lead the fray winning both the races

MUMBAI: “We will give it our best shot and if all goes well we should retain the tag,” was the Indian captain R Mahesh’s pre-race comments.

And it seems to have come true at least at the end of the first day’s proceedings in the sailing event of the Military World Games at the Sunk, close to the light house near the Sailing Club in Colaba here on Tuesday.

The delayed official flagging of the race saw one race being cancelled. The first race which was to be held at 1.15 pm got underway an hour late — at 2.15 pm — as the organisers had to cancel another race.

Captain R Mahesh, along with his partner GL Yadav, made a positive move as the 25 teams took off at the Sunk.

Half way through the first loop it was the Spanish team which held sway and they maintained their lead at the end of the first loop. “We did have problems as we took the turn at the second point boy,” said Mahesh.

But the duo, who are making their first attempt in the big league, made up for the errors and finished first ahead of Spain in the first race.

At the end of day one India, which finished first in both races, were on top with two penalty points followed by Spain with four and Finland with seven in the second and third places respectively. India were the leaders initially but drifted away.

“It was against the wind when we were approaching the first point after the flag off, we swayed and lost ground,” said captain Mahesh even as the Indian duo rounded off the half loop behind Spain, the only team which is not from the navy gave them a taste of their own medicine.

“We hit the boy at the finish and paid dearly as we had as we were with proved better than the other sailors, and finished second behind the holders,” said

Soto Loureiro Francisco, one of the members of the Spanish team. The Spaniards, who are yet to make it to the podium in this championship finished the day with, and with another seven races to go, their opening day’s outing is clear warning to the others.
Finland, which won the Canadian Edition of the championship in 2001 also finished third the both the races.

Sri Lanka failed to keep up the tempo in the second and were placed 8 in the points order.

Francis breaks record

Samuel Francis of Qatar became the fastest man of the 4th Military World Games after winning the 100m sprint. Francis, who clocked 10.10s, erased the earlier record of 10.18s which was in the name of another Qatari T Mansoor set in 1990.

Jitender wins first medal

Jitender fetched the first medal for India, finishing third in the men’s 400m hurdles on  Tuesday Edrees Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia (50.26 sec) won gold while Brazil’s Thiago de Jesus Sales (50.98) pocketed the silver.