Boardsailor Chan King-yin could be left without any way of defending his Asian Games title this year, because the class of race he chose to compete in is still short of the necessary number of competitors.
Chan (pictured), better known as Ah Ying, chose to race in the Mistral class, which has dropped in popularity since it lost its Olympic status to the RS:X class, which became the Olympic standard in Beijing in 2008.
The windsurfing event at the Asian Games in November will feature both RS:X and Mistral classes, and Ah Ying earned the right to choose which class to compete in by winning Hong Kong's Asian Games trials in May. The Beijing Games Olympian left the RS:X to teammate Cheng Kwok-fai, who came second in the trials.
Leading-women's-boardsailor Chan Wai-kei will compete in the RS:X in Guangzhou, while Chan Hei-man, who was second in selection, will compete in the Mistral.
Ah Ying won the lightweight Mistral at the previous Asiad, in Doha, when only one class was featured.
'According to the rules, we need six boats to put together a race,' said Dennis Chau Wai-keung, executive director of the Windsurfing Association of Hong Kong. 'We don't know if we can have that number of Mistral participants in the Guangzhou Games: many boardsailors have quit the class since it is not featured at the Olympic Games, while the RS:X is unlikely to encounter that problem.