Ethan Chia, 14, wins Optimist Asian and Oceanian C'ships title
Battling a sore throat, fever and headache on the final day of the Optimist Asian and Oceanian Championships on Jan 4, there were moments when Singaporean sailor Ethan Chia found himself losing focus and zoning out.
But quitting never crossed his mind. Instead, he tried to maintain his concentration as the title fight between him and teammate Sean Kum went down to the wire.
The Raffles Institution student eventually won his final race to top the standings with 29 net points, finishing ahead of compatriot Sean (34) and Hong Kong’s Margaux Nguyen-Minh (51) to retain his gold medal.
By the time he got to shore, the 14-year-old had lost his voice after a testing day out on the waters off the Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club in Hong Kong.
Ethan said: “Quitting the competition was not an option for me, I didn’t want to because I trained so hard for it.
“I just wanted to make sure that no matter what, I didn’t quit so I just tried to push through.”
Keeping his focus was crucial, especially as he was trailing Sean by seven points ahead of the last race.
This time he could count on his experience from the 2023 edition in the United Arab Emirates, where he was also four points behind his Thai rival Chanatip Tongglum going into the final day.
Competing in local and overseas regattas over the past few years has helped the Secondary 3 student cope with the stress.
What has also helped is surrounding himself with supportive family, friends and coaches.
While he admitted to feeling pressure as the defending champion, he said: “Now I’ve learnt to control my feelings and emotions, take each race one step at a time, so it’s much easier for me to stay calm.
“It definitely feels really good to defend my title, I feel proud to represent Singapore at the Asian championships. That’s the most important thing – I did it for my country, for my coach and my friends and family who’ve been supporting me.”
Ethan was also part of the Singapore team alongside Sean, Zeph Wan, Pee Teck Woon and Desiree Lee who won the team racing championship in Hong Kong on Jan 3 after beating Thailand in the final sail-off.
The Republic’s other team of Mikaela Ng, Germaine Sim, Lucas Cao, Alyssa Wong and Ashlea Tham finished third.
Ethan believes that the experience gained at December’s Optimist Team Racing World Championship, where Singapore won a silver, helped him and his fellow sailors prepare for the Asian and Oceanian Championships.
He said: “When we got second for team racing at the worlds, we were definitely more prepared for this Asian team racing as we got to race a lot of strong countries at the worlds and we learnt from many mistakes that we made there.”
Also pencilled in Ethan’s 2025 calendar is the June 26-July 6 Optimist World Championship in Slovenia, and on top of that he will also be training in the ILCA 4 class in preparation for the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya.
Singapore Sailing’s national Optimist head coach Sherman Cheng praised Ethan and Sean for performing consistently amid the diverse conditions at the regatta.
He added: “We had a very successful outing, the level of the sailors we brought in the team performed really well in the tough conditions over the past few days, so I’m very proud of them.
“The recent performance shows the level and standard of the Optimist sailors in Singapore, especially this bunch of kids we have, they’ve been training incredibly hard for the last three to four years.”
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