TUNISIA became the first team to reach Bahrain ahead of the 2012 Kingdom Match Race Sailing, set to commence tomorrow at Bahrain Sailing Club near Al Jazayer Beach in Zallaq.
Skippered by Haedi Znaidi, the Tunisian delegation arrived on Sunday with three other crew members.
There are 12 teams from nine countries taking part in this year’s event, organised by the association for the 10th time and sanctioned by International Sailing Federation (ISAF).
Participants include two teams each from Russia, Oman and Bahrain, while Estonia, Poland, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Tunisia are sending one team each.
Bahrain Maritime Sports Association general secretary Sameer Shuwaiter said more teams and officials are scheduled to arrive today, including sailors from Andrea Arbozov-skippered Russia ‘A’, ranked 46th in the world.
Estonia and its four-member crew, led by Mati Sepp who has the highest ISAF ranking of 24, are also be coming today.
Instructors
Others reaching the island later today are ISAF instructors Marianne Middlethon of Norway and India’s Abhimanyu Patankar, besides judges Luca Babini of Italy and Thierry Poirey of France.
Russia ‘B’ team, holding a world ranking of 26 and skippered by Musikhin Sergey, are also scheduled to arrive today along with compatriot ISAF instructor Vladimir Pavlov and a five-member team from Kuwait.
World ranked 98th Poland and their skipper Kuba Pawluc will be the last delegation to reach the Kingdom tomorrow, just 24 hours before the start of official races.
Shuwaiter said the organising Committee have named other race officials – Piero Occhitto of Italy, Pakistan’s Tariq Javed and a trio of Bahrainis Qassim Ben Jemia, Ebrahim Hazeem and Sameer Showaiter.
He noted that sailing fans will now have the chance to follow the race through social networking services like Facebook, Twitter and Instigram.
Shuwaiter said the sailing association’s board, under its president Shaikh Khalifa bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, are taking all necessary steps to make this event a grand success.
He said they have a huge responsibility organising this year’s championship which has been upgraded to Grade Two after the tremendous success achieved in previous years.
The BMSA general secretary thanked the president of Bahrain Olympic Committee and Supreme Council for Youth and Sports chairman Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa for his support.
He also thanked championship sponsors Omega, Bapco, Banagas and other companies for their contributions.