Sailors Justin Liu and Denise Lim eye Olympics berth after podium finish in Germany

SINGAPORE – With three months to go before the Hangzhou Asian Games, Singapore’s sailing duo Justin Liu and Denise Lim are feeling the wind in their sails.

The pair tuned up for the continental meet in style as they finished third in the mixed Nacra 17 event at the 2023 Kieler Woche, an annual regatta in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, on Wednesday.

Italy’s Margherita Porro and Stefano Dezulian took the win with 14 points after 11 races, while Germany’s Paul Kohlhoff and Alica Stuhlemmer were second with 32 points.

Liu and Lim collected 39 points to claim a podium spot ahead of nine other pairs.

The duo are among 17 Singapore sailors who have qualified for the Sept 23-Oct 8 Asiad.

Speaking to The Straits Times on Friday, Liu said that more than a podium finish, it was being competitive against teams such as the German pair, who were Tokyo 2020 bronze medallists, that has really boosted their confidence.

He added: “To be able to get close to them is a good sign for us. We showed that our level is where we want to be as we gear up for the important events to come this year, including the Asian Games.”

In Hangzhou, Liu will be gunning for his third gold medal in as many Asiads. He had partnered Sherman Cheng to win the men’s double-handed dinghy 420 event in 2006 and 2010.

For Lim, the upcoming Asian Games will be her first. And while they are hoping to medal in China, their immediate focus is qualifying for the Paris Olympics.

They will remain in Europe for training as part of preparation for the Aug 10-20 Sailing World Championships in The Hague, Netherlands. This will also serve as the first of three qualifiers for Paris 2024.

Liu, 32, and Lim, 31, are no strangers to the Olympics. They finished 19th out of 20 in the mixed Nacra 17 event at the 2016 Olympics.

They had clinched their spot in Rio de Janeiro after winning the Qingdao leg of the International Sailing Federation World Cup in 2015. In the process, they became the first Singaporean sailors to win a World Cup event.

While they were forced to miss out on the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 due to work commitments, they are gunning for a spot in Paris by finishing in the top 10 at the world championships.

Their ambition to qualify for the Olympics also received a big boost when they were included in the latest cohort of the Sport Excellence Scholarship (SpexScholarship) in April.

Lim, a nurse, and Liu, a policy analyst at the Ministry of Health, have since taken no-pay leave from their jobs to train full time.

It is a far cry from 2015, when they just started out and had to fork out more than $30,000 from their own pockets to chase their dream.

Singapore Sailing’s head of high performance and coaching Chung Pei Ming is buoyed by his charges’ latest performance.

He said: “The team are in the final month of preparation for the Olympic qualifiers and the Asian Games. With the recent boost from Sport Singapore’s SpexScholarship support, achieving a podium finish at a major regatta shows that the team are on track for a strong performance at the upcoming events.”

The pair, who got married in 2021, document their journey on their shared Instagram page “jd.sailing”.

On what has kept them going since they started sailing together, Liu said: “We are both not young any more. We have been on this path for many years and we continue to want to make the most of our journey.

“Any medals at the Asian Games or qualification for the Olympics is a bonus we would love to get. We just want to enjoy ourselves in this process for as long as we can.”