Rene Appel could be the man to save sailing’s tier A status with the Hong Kong Sports Institute

Asian Games failure means water sports need success at World Championships and to qualify for Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics to stand a chance

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Rene Appel, then Hong Kong windsurfing team head coach, at Stanley in 2015. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 2:30pm, 1 Oct 2018Updated: 11:42pm, 1 Oct 2018

Former windsurfing head coach Rene Appel, Hong Kong’s only Olympic gold medal trainer, has been targeted as part of a “salvation” plan to save sailing.

In 2015, the Dutchmen left the Hong Kong Sports Institute where he had been the head windsurfing coach for over two decades and embarked a new life of sailing around the world on a yacht with his wife.

But after becoming one of only two tier A sports at the Institute that failed to lift a gold medal at the Asian Games in Indonesia this summer, sailing now faces a do-or-die mission in the next two years. The former windsurfing coach immediately came to their mind.

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Japan's Tetsuya Isozaki (R) and Akira Takayanagi gesture to photographers at the end of the 470 men sailing competition at the 2018 Asian Games. Photo: AFP

“We want to bring Appel back as a consultant as he knows water sports here well,” said Sailing Federation president Tong Yui-shing. “We need someone who has a strong local background as we are racing against time to save our tier A status at the Sports Institute.”

Tong said Steven Lovegrove, the head sailing coach at the Sports Institute, will be leaving Hong Kong next month when his contract expires.