India’s Manu Francis and Prince Kurisinkal Noble won the silver medal in the men’s skiff sailing event at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya on Thursday.
The Indian pair finished the nine-race series with 23 net points at the Kaiyoh Yacht Harbor, behind the People’s Republic of China, who won gold with 16.
Hong Kong China took bronze with 24 net points, just one behind Manu and Prince.
The Indian sailors won Race 3 and finished second in Races 1, 5 and 9. They accumulated 29 points across the nine races, with their sixth-place finish in Race 8 discarded to arrive at a net score of 23.
“It was tough, very very tough,” Manu said. “We didn’t know we were in the silver medal position. We were just fighting for the bronze. So it was lucky.”
Sailing follows a low-point scoring system, with a race winner receiving one point, the second-placed boat two and so on. The lowest overall score wins, with the worst result discarded after the prescribed number of races.
Skiffs are small light boats.
“We were a bit slow before,” Manu said. “So we did some work back home on the boat, some tuning, the sail shape and everything, so now it is good. It helped us today.”
China’s Liu Tian and Wen Zaiding successfully defended the men’s skiff title they won at Hangzhou 2023. Hong Kong China’s Russell Williams Aylsworth and Akira Luke Sakai also retained their place on the podium after winning bronze at the previous edition.
The same Indian pair won bronze in the 49er class at the 2023 Asian Sailing Championships in Pattaya, where they also finished behind Liu Tian and Wen Zaiding.
The Aichi-Nagoya medal was India’s first Asian Games silver in the men’s skiff and the country’s second medal in the event.
Varun Thakkar and KC Ganapathy won bronze in the men’s 49er at Jakarta 2018.
Sailing was first included in the Asian Games programme at Bangkok 1970.
Manu and Prince’s silver was also India’s 24th sailing medal at the Asian Games. At Hangzhou 2023, India had won three.
India have fielded a 10-member sailing contingent at Aichi-Nagoya 2026.
Earlier on Thursday, Harshita Tomar and Shital Verma narrowly missed adding another medal, finishing fourth in the women’s skiff. The Indian pair had also finished fourth in the event at Hangzhou 2023.
The sailing competition is scheduled to conclude on October 3.
read more: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/asian-games-2026-sailing-manu-francis-prince-noble-silver-medal
