Algerian makes strides to Youth Worlds

Heading to the 2015 Youth World Championships later this month in Langkawi, Malaysia will be Algerian Akil Nouha who will be competing in the Laser Radial class.

The 16-year-old, was a graduate of the Emerging Nations Program (ENP) clinic in Maputo, Mozambique back in May which had the aim of improving the skills of the attending sailors and to hand out some coaching tips.

Along with the rest of the group in Mozambique, Akil certainly picked up a few handy hints to take to Malaysia as she tells us, “We’ve learned quite a lot of things with our ISAF coaches, Rob [Holden], Antonio [Freitas] and Eduardo [Sylvestre]. They’ve taught us how to create sailing strategies and they’ve taught us the psychological aspect.”

Akil has had the opportunity to represent her country already on the world stage at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games. Together with the knowledge from that high level competition and her newly gathered ENP tips, Akil gives us hers to get a Laser Radial to go that bit faster, “To make the boat function better and to have more speed you need to have a good position to go out and work the body. Work physically. You need a good setup. And you need to have a look at the areas where the wind is good.”

As Akil’s bullet points suggest she is most definitely taking onboard as much information as she can from her experiences. Is it a good thing that the ENP clinic touched down in Africa to help others on the continent? “I think that’s a good thing. If they organize similar training courses often, if we do similar training with ISAF often, we can improve and make progress.”

The Youth Worlds will definitely be an opportunity to see if Akil has improved and progressed when she takes to the water of another world competition. As she looks to improve on a 29th place at Nanjing 2014, Malaysia awaits for Akil.

ISAF Youth Worlds

Langkawi, Malaysia is hosting the 45th edition of the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships from 27 December to 3 January 2016. More than 380 sailors from 80 sailing in more than 300 boats across nine disciplines will compete in Malaysia.

Website – www.isafyouthworlds.com/home.php