Sailors plan medal haul

 SAILING Papua New Guinea is set to bring back medals from the 2013 IX Pacific Mini Games, national coach Graham Numa says.

The two-time Olympian sailing veteran said on Wednesday much had happened in the past decade and he was confident of his team of teenagers would bring back medals, as well as win the most medals in the 2015 Pacific Games.

Numa, pictured, said in the past expatriates living represented the country. 

“But since the eligibility conditions changed, where representatives must possess PNG passports, we have begun to really develop our local talent,” Numa said.

“Eight years ago we started a sailing school at Bootless Bay, outside Port Mo­res­by. We started teaching seven and eight-year-olds. The representatives going to this year’s Mini Games are the products of that development programme.”

The 1991 Pacific Games silver medallist is confident PNG will win an Olympic medal in sailing. His sailors to the Mini Games are aged between 16 and 19. 

“PNG has one of the best sailing conditions in the world. Bruce Kendall, the New Zealand windsurfer who won the gold medal in windsurfing in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, spent almost six months training in PNG,” Numa said.

“I was training with him and competed in the Seoul Olympics.” 

Numa said despite the struggle that the Bootless Bay Sailing School was facing, he hoped that among the almost 100 young children who were now taught by the school a few would be medal winners not only in the Pacific Games but in the top world events as well.