The futures of four young Omani sailors took a promising turn at the recent International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA) Asian Championships 2014 in Bahrain with performances that marked a steady progress in their training and development.

The youth, which are part of Oman Sail’s Omantel Youth Program, sponsored by Omantel and co-sponsored by Oman Shipping Company, exceeded targets with solid performances in the Championship that was held from 28 March – 6 April.

In his first ever international event, Laith Al Mahrouki got off to a strong start finishing his opening race in tenth place and a set of consistent results placed him in the top league of the 131 strong field, known as the gold fleet, at the end of the qualifying stages joining his more experienced teammate Salim Al Alawi.

Zakariya Al Wahaibi and Marwan Al Jabri, two more members of the Omantel Youth Programme for talented youngsters aged between 12 and 14, were just behind them in the silver fleet with Al Jabri sweeping to an outright victory in one of the final races to achieve a third place overall with both boys posting a string of top ten places.

It was the first time Oman had participated in the IODA Asian championships but they emerged as the most successful of the GCC nations and although it was Singapore who dominated as expected, the performances were encouraging for the individuals themselves and also for the training programme, according to youth pathway coach Abdul Aziz Al Shidi.

“There is obviously a very long way to go to achieve our goals which is to be at the top but to have three of our sailors in the top 50% demonstrates that we are on the right track,” said Al Shidi who has worked hard with Brazilian coach Leonardo Santos to advance Oman Sail’s Omantel Youth Development Programme.

“I said before the start that I would be happy if we had one sailor in the top 50% but finished the event with three sailors in the top 50% so we are very happy.

“Our sailors in this event are still very young. They have many more years to compete in the Optimist class but this shows that the system is working.

“These four gained very good experience and improved a lot over the course of the competition and we have a lot more sailors back in Oman who will benefit from them transferring that knowledge and experience.”

“Within three or four years, we hope to be producing medallists at these competitions and these sailors in particular should be among our top performers.”

Last month, the four youngsters participated in the 2014 Mussanah Race Week, which brought together internationally-renowned trainers to conduct coaching clinics that were designed to arm Oman’s next generation of sailing professionals with a battery of tips and help them accelerate their sailing careers.

After the championships in Bahrain, the Optimists return to school but will continue their training at the race clubs in Oman Sail’s sailing centres and help the other young sailors at the clubs. Later this year, some of the sailors will be selected to go abroad to training camps and racing events to improve their skills while one will be selected to compete in the Arabian Optimist championships and other GCC events later in the year.

The laser Optimist boat is a 2.3-metre youth racing dinghy that is sailed at club, national and international levels. With more than 150,000 registered sailboats globally, it is considered a challenging boat that rewards athleticism, subtle steering, trimming techniques and tactical excellence. Most of the world's best sailors have at some point in their careers campaigned a Laser, most notably multiple Olympic medallists Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt.