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The Southeast Asian (SEA) Games seem but a "stepping stone" for Team Singapore's sailors heading for next month's competition in Jakarta.
Pitching a young team of athletes for the Games, the Singapore Sailing Federation (SSF) says it is grooming them for larger regattas and world championships.
"We are not saying that the SEA Games are not important," said SSF general manager Jason Lim, "but they are the lowest of the three Games in our pathway to the Olympics."
"We constantly remind the athletes and they know that the Olympics is the final target," added team manager and former national sailor Chung Pei Ming.
Turning to the athletes, he said, "Go to the SEA Games, do well, because if you're preparing for the Olympics, (this) shouldn't be a problem."
This year's team includes two pairs of 470 sailors -- Russell Kan and Terence Koh, aged 18 and 24, who will be competing together abroad for the first time, as well as 24-year-old Dawn Liu and 21-year-old Sara Tan, who have competed in previous SEA Games.
All four are preparing for the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Perth, the principal Olympic qualifier event, in the first two weeks of December.
The team's sole Optimist and youngest sailor, 14-year-old Elisa Yukie Yokoyama, will make her SEA Games debut after participating in a 10-day training camp in Sydney in preparation for the IODA World Sailing Championship in Napier, New Zealand, at the end of the year.
"To her, that is the bigger picture," said Chung. "SEA games is a stepping stone which takes up three weeks of her time," he added.
Star sailor Victoria Chan, 21, will be competing alongside 17-year-old Terence Choo in the Laser Radial class, and four windsurfers -- Shaun Pow, 19, and Amanda Ng, 17, in the RS:X category, as well as Audrey Yong, 17, and Leonard Ong, 19, in the Mistral category.
Singapore's sailing team has consistently been successful at the regional meet, having won 13 and 11 medals in the 2007 and 2005 Games previously. Sailing was not offered as a sport in the 2009 Vientiane games in Laos.
In terms of medal predictions, however, the team officials would not share specific aims, if they had any.
"I am psychologically trained as a sailor to focus on process goals," said Chung. "There is that outcome pressure to maintain the standards of sailing in Singapore... but it just naturally comes down to the processes; I just have to do the little things correct, by planning their program properly, and they have to do the little things correct. And when all the little things are done, the outcome will show."
"I'm not focusing on the outcome, that's why I can't tell you how many medals we're going to get, because I don't know," he continued. "I only know that they are being prepared the best way they can be."
Catch all the action from the SEA Games from November 11 - 22 in Jakarta on Yahoo! Singapore.
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