Match race demon

James Boyd spoke to Magnus Holmberg last year's Swedish Match Tour champion now helmsman for Victory Challenge

Sweden's America's Cup campaign, Victory Challenge, had a major set back this week with the death of their main backer, television and telecoms entrepreneur Jan Stenbeck. The team have confirmed that despite this tragedy their campaign will continue. Prior to Mr Stenbeck's passing away we spoke to helmsman Magnus Holmberg (left) about the campaign and about the Swedish Match Tour, of which he is one of the original architects.

Come 1 October and the start of the Louis Vuitton Series it will be a toss up between Magnus Holmberg, 40, and the equally talented former Dane and Soling gold medallist Jesper Bank over who will take the helm of the Swedish Challenger. "Normally me and Jesper are steering one boat each," Holmberg says of their training programme. "The decision has not been made as to who will steer. It will be a decision made right before we start the Louis Vuitton Series and we're a small team, so it will be very important to keep everyone on their toes.

"We don't want to divide the team into an A and a B team. We're one team and we're all going to do it together and I'm sure there'll be changes down the road, maybe someone will get injured or we'll see how people develop. So who is on the boat for the first race it won't be clarified until we are very close."

Holmberg, who is no relation to Oracle's Peter Holmberg, has an impressive list of sailing credentials. He has represented Sweden in the Olympics in 1984, 1992 and 1996 and was runner up in the Soling Worlds in 1995 and winner in 1996. Last year he was winner of the whole Swedish Match Tour, an accolade his namesake has taken off him this year.

Early on in Victory's programme, the team scored a coup when project leader Mats Johansson negotated the purchase of NZL-38, the Team New Zealand training boat from the 1995 Cup and winner of the Louis Vuitton Series. The boat was rechristened Christina after Jan Stenbeck's daughter.

Holmberg explains a little more about the make-up of the team. "We're not a very big syndicate and we're not a lot of people, but I feel we're a very small efficient team and we have a lot of good calls in where to put our resources and where to spend our time. I think we have spent more time on the water than any other America's Cup team including Team New Zealand and I feel we have a very good spirit within the team.

"I think it is not easy to mix together people with different nationalities and cultures and I think some of the teams will experience difficulties when they come under pressure. We are mainly Scandinavian and we can communicate with each other and we are fairly similar sorts of people, used to solving problems and I think when the pressure is on it is important that the team comes together and doesn't split into different factions."

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