Gilmour heads the table

Following recent Swedish Match Tour win

A win at last week’s Investors Guaranty Presentation of the King Edward VII Gold Cup in Bermuda has elevated Australian Peter Gilmour of the Pizza-La Sailing Team to the lead on the Swedish Match Tour 2003/2004 Rankings.

The 25 points Gilmour picked up in Bermuda, coupled with the 15 points he earned for his third place finish at August’s Danish Open 2003, moved the four-time America’s Cup veteran into first place on the world’s premier professional sailing series rankings. It is the first time since the conclusion of the third event on the inaugural Swedish Match Tour, the ACI HT Mobile Cup in May 2000, that Gilmour has been on top.

“Our Pizza-La Sailing Team has been off the Swedish Match Tour for the last two years, as I’d been focused on my responsibilities with the OneWorld Challenge,” explains Gilmour. “Thanks to the wonderful support of our sponsor, Pizza-La, we’re going to commit ourselves to the Swedish Match Tour for the next year and do our best and have some fun with it.”

In second place is the reigning Swedish Match Tour champion, Jesper Radich of Denmark. Radich began Swedish Match Tour 2003/2004 with a fourth place finish in Denmark, losing to Gilmour in the petit finals sail-off, and then defeating New Zealand’s Dean Barker of the Omega Match Racing Team in the sail-offs in Bermuda.

“One of the important things from winning the Swedish Match Tour is that by now we have met most of the guys and we know we can beat them and we’re not scared anymore,” said Radich. “We’re going to keep sailing on the Swedish Match Tour and do our best to move up the rankings and take the title again next year.”

Sweden’s Magnus Holmberg of Team Continental Airlines is in third place courtesy of his win in Denmark. Holmberg was an unseeded skipper in Bermuda and failed to advance out of the qualifying round, resulting in no points being added to his ranking.

Tied for fourth are the two runner-ups in the first two events of the year, Oracle BMW Racing’s Chris Dickson and Denmark’s Jesper Bank, former helmsman for the Victory Challenge.

A trio of Kiwis round out the rankings. Barker is currently in sixth, following his fourth place finish in Bermuda and three-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts of the Alinghi Team and countryman Kelvin Harrap are tied for seventh on 10 points.

Four of the current skippers on the leaderboard, including the top three, are among the twelve entrants for the upcoming Nippon Cup 2003, the next event on the Swedish Match Tour. Scheduled for November 17-23 in Hayama, Japan, the Nippon Cup 2003 will continue to heat up the race for the Swedish Match Tour 2003/2004 championship.

Current Swedish Match Tour 2003/2004 Rankings

1.Peter Gilmour, AUS/Pizza-La Sailing Team, 40
2.Jesper Radich, DEN/Team Radich, 27
3.Magnus Holmberg, SWE/Team Continental Airlines, 25
4.Jesper Bank, Denmark, 20
=Chris Dickson, Oracle BMW Racing Team, 20
6.Dean Barker, NZ/Omega Match Racing Team, 12
7.Russell Coutts, Alinghi Team, 10
=Kelvin Harrap, New Zealand, 10