March 4, 2006	Saturday	Safar 3, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

KARACHI, March 3: Pakistani sailors would make their presence felt in seven events of the biennial 12th Asian Sailing championship being held at Doha, Qatar, from March 16 to 25.

The venue of regatta is the same where the Asian Games takes place later this year.

A 20-member strong squad was named by the Pakistan Sailing Federation (PSAF) on Friday. The team would be accompanied by five officials.

The sailors were picked after extensive trials conducted by the PSAF last month.

Two Pakistani pairs- Mamoon Sadiq-Abdul Hameed and Zahid Rauf-Rana Waqas recently did the country proud by capturing silver and bronze at the World Enterprise meet at Negombo, Sri Lanka.

However, the sailors would face a challenging task after their favourite Enterprise class boat has been omitted from the competition. Competitors from about 15 nations would feature in the regatta.

Pakistan returned with two silver and a bronze from the last Asian regatta held at Bombay two years back. Off these, one silver and a bronze were captured in Enterprise. The other silver was bagged in Mistral.

Squad:

Optimist: Abdur Rehman Bin Nasir Rao; Waleed Tobeh; Ghazal Mir Masood; Maria Sehr.

Laser 4.7: Sabahatullah Babur; Ujala Mir Masood.

Laser Standard: Mohammad Yousuf; Ashfaq Iqbal.

Laser Radial: Lt Cdr Mamoon Sadiq; Lt Cdr Zahid Rauf.

470: Eerxes Avari; Rafiq Mehboob.

Mistral: Mohammad Tanveer; Khan Dad; Essa Khan; Aamir Nawaz.

Match Racing: Shehryar Arshad; Riaz Khan; Ahsan Naqvi; Iqbal Azeem.

Officials: Tariq Waheed (team leader); S. V. Hasan (manager); Mir Masood (Optimist coach); Ian David Pinnell (coach 470) and Noor Mohammad (boatman).