Egyptian sailors are readying for the Sailing World Championships in Perth which could take them to next year's Olympic Games. Ghada Abdel-Kader reports from Sinai's Ras Sudr The Egyptian Sailing and Water Ski Federation is currently training with Turkish windsurf coach Ertugrul Icingir and Spanish laser standard coach Javier Guitian Sarria in Moon Beach Resort in Ras Sudr. Practice ends 8 December. The training is to help four Egyptian sailors who will participate for the first time in the Perth 2011 ISAF (International Sailing Federation) World Championships. The 3-18 December tournament is the main qualification event for the Olympics Games in London 2012. Seventy-five per cent of the nations qualifying will come from Perth and the remaining 25 per cent from other world championships for each boat class. The tournament is held once every four years. It has 10 Olympic events. Egypt will participate in two events -- men's windsurf and men's one-person dinghy. Ahmed Hisham and Abdel-Rahman Bakri are in the windsurf and Ahmed Ragab and Mohamed El-Shatori the laser standard. Meanwhile, ten sailors will participate in the 12th Arab Games in Doha, Qatar, being held from 9-23 December. Optimist sailors are Sherif El-Zayat, Mohamed Ramadan, Kholoud Mustafa and Monaai Mustafa. Laser 4.7 sailors are Marwan Mansi and Mohamed Morsi. Laser radial sailors are Adam El-Shayeb and Sherif El-Shayeb. Coach Icingir, 36, has been windsurfing for 26 years. He won the Turkish championship 13 times. He represented Turkey three consecutive times in Sydney in 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, finishing 11th in Athens. Icingir ranked 6th in the world in 2005 and was 10th from 2005 to 2008, after which he retired and began coaching. Icingir still races in various fun board disciplines. "They are good sailors," Icingir said about the Egyptian team. "They learn fast. They have a lot of motivation and I have a lot of knowledge and experience after training the best sailors in the world. I can give them a lot of information on technique, training, nutrition and endurance." To become a world champion Icingir told Al-Ahram Weekly: "It needs a minimum eight years, including a full time commitment to the sport. They cannot work in any other job and also train. It is nearly impossible to do it any other way, especially windsurfing because it is a sport that takes much time. A sailor in the Olympics could win a medal at the age of 30 which is quite old. "In other sports like swimming, the average age of a champion is 20 or 22. In gymnastics it is much less, at 17. Sailing is a tough sport. It needs experience to read the wind and the waves. It is like chess. "I think the disadvantage the Egyptian sailors have concerns the Olympic equipment which they received quite late, just six months ago, even though the equipment in sailing has been the same for may be 11 years. Many international players have been using the same equipment for seven or even 10 years." About Egypt's chances in Australia, Icingir said that any competition is a good opportunity to learn and gain experience. "It is very tough competition. It is a world championship in which only the best players can enter. All of them work very hard for a long time. They have been working hard for five or six years non-stop. The whole year they train and race. "The championship should be viewed by the Egyptian team as a venue to learn, not to fight. They are just beginning. They don't have much experience. They didn't spent much time on the Olympic equipment. This is disadvantage when performing on the international level. The important point is to keep working and have patience." Spanish coach Sarria said, "The Egyptian sailors need to have more regular training camps like this one. They also need to participate in more international championships abroad. I think they have a good opportunity to learn more." Sarria is the technical coach in Empuriaveta Academy, a sailing school in Catalonia, Spain. Sarria was first five times in Spain in the National Regatta ranking. His best result was in Europe in 2008 in the laser standard. Coach of the Egyptian team Mohamed Ramadan talked about the history of sailing in Egypt. "Sailing came to Egypt with the foreign community living in Ismailia and working for the Suez Canal Authority in the 1960s. They entered different types of boats for racing. The competition was at the Arab level but on the international level we don't know our place exactly. We are going to Perth to figure it out," Ramadan comically said. Hisham has been in the windsurf business for 12 years. This is his first attempt in an international championship. He sees sailing as being totally different from any other water sport. "A race is like chess. It is from 30 to 45 minutes long. Sailing needs a high level of concentration, physical fitness, patience, tactics, speed and planning." Bakri has seven years under his belt. "This is the first time for Egypt to participate in a world championship. The training camp was very helpful." Ragab, who has been practicing sailing for 13 years at the Alexandria Yacht Club, was African optimist champion in 2005 and 2006. Ragab called sailing an expensive sport because of the cost of the boat and the equipment. He cited the laser standard boat which could cost up to 800 euros. A lifejacket is 100 euros and the swimsuit 300 euros. El-Shatori must combine sailing with his job as assistant professor of radiology in Suez Canal University Hospital. For 18 years he has been playing his water trade at Ismailia Yacht Club. El-Shatori was a national champion several times. "It's the first time for laser standard Egyptian sailors to participate in the world championships. It is a good opportunity for us," El-Shatori said. Sultan, 29, is the captain of the Egyptian team. An architect by profession, Sultan has been training for a long 18 years. "My main focus was on optimist and laser types." Sultan loves the sport. "I have a lot of fun. I run with the sea and the wind. The water is my ground. It is safe. The difficulty lies in the movement of the boat which relies on physics not engines. Air is invisible. You have to imagine air as it pushes the sail." Both Mansi and Morsi qualified for Qatar by winning the last stage of qualifications for the national championship. Mansi came first while Morsi finished second. The youngest girls on the team, Kholoud Mustafa and Monaai Mustafa, have been involved in sailing for five years. "It is a unique sport," Kholoud Mustafa said. "It is very popular among my friends." On when to start training for sailing, Islam Megahed, a coach at the Alexandria Yacht Club, said the younger the better. "First, though, you must learn how to swim before you can sail."
