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SEA Games: Women’s 470 pair stage comeback to win sailing gold

27 Aug 2017

Elisa Yukie Yokoyama won her race against time to recover from injury and teamed up with Cheryl Teo to triumph at the finish line

 


KUALA LUMPUR — A month ago, sailor Elisa Yukie Yokoyama suffered an injury that threw her SEA Games participation into doubt.

While catching a falling mast, the 20-year-old hyper-extended her right arm, which left her unable to extend it beyond 90 degrees.


But on Sunday afternoon (Aug 27), Yokoyama battled through the pain to strike gold for Singapore with partner Cheryl Teo in the women’s 470 class in a memorable victory in Langkawi.

“One month ago, I couldn’t raise my right arm and even if we had got silver, it would have been amazing,” she said. 

“There was cartilage tear and muscle sprain, I was out for three weeks and only started sailing one week before we came here!”

Teo, a Games debutant, added: “There were a lot of people who told us not to do the SEA Games… (they advised us) to think long-term.”

Training plans were thrown into disarray and Yokoyama underwent vigorous rehabilitation, doing everything possible to accelerate her recovery. 

She succeeded in making it to the Games, but it took a massive comeback on the waters to win the Republic’s second sailing gold in this edition too.

The Singaporean duo headed into the final race with a two-point lead over Malaysians Norashikin Sayed – one half of the pair that won the gold at the 2015 Games in Singapore – and Nuraisyah Jamil, meaning they needed to finish ahead of their Causeway neighbours, regardless of position, to win gold.

But things went awry from the start as Yokoyama misjudged the timing and they found themselves blocked by the Malaysians, who took the lead and were ahead by more than five boat lengths at one point.

“It was really far and I really thought we lost it,” Teo recalled. 

“I was prepared to get silver.”

Just as it looked like the race was a foregone conclusion, nerves appeared to afflict the Malaysians and Singapore smelled blood.

“We both never gave up and just kept praying… and then there was a moment we got close enough to strike and then we did,” Yokoyama said. 

“I don’t know how, (but) I knew we were going to catch them.”

In the end, the Singapore duo won it right on the finish line, edging their rivals by just half a boat length to complete a stunning fightback.

“We suddenly got so close and then we just slipped further in front, it was just really intense,” Teo said. “It was quite overwhelming, especially at the finish line (and) we both just broke down and cried.”

The gold is Singapore’s second from sailing after the trio of Ryan Lo, Bernie Chin and Mark Wong pipped hosts Malaysia to win the men’s team racing dinghy laser standard last week.

Victory also served as a stepping stone for Yokoyama and Teo, who only got together as a pairing last August and decide to quit school this May to embark on a qualifying campaign for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

“Internationally, we are not there yet but we hope this win will give us the confidence to overcome all barriers,” said Yokoyama, a former Optimist world champion in 2011. 

Before the race, her mother texted “Time to totally kick ass” to Yokoyama. 

Raising her arms to collect the third SEA Games gold of her career, she did exactly that.

source: TEO TENG