Alison ahead

After day one of the Swedish Match Cup in Marstrand

In the Marstrand, the Swedish Match Cup begun today with the women's round robin series, where all the competitors sail against each other.

This afternoon 16 matches were sailed in total. American Betsy Alison was really close to go undefeated through today's races but lost the last one narrowly to French woman Claire Leroy. "For the first time on an opening day at Swedish Match Cup we felt all comfortable handling the boats," said Betsy Alison who admits that a brief training session in Denmark had worked wonders. "We did some really good manoeuvres during the pre-start, except in the last match which we lost," she said.

Alison is the present lead alongside Dane Lotte Meldgaard-Pedersen, who is number one on the world ranking, and Marie Björling, who is sailing on her home waters. All of them have three wins and one loss. Until just a couple of weeks ago Marie was number one on the world ranking, but her maternity leave this winter resulted in her dropping to number nine.

"It's a natural consequence though I haven't been sailing since August but that's no big drama," says Marie adding that the crew has kept everything in place during her leave. "Jenny Axhede who is genoa trimmer has been the helmsman and participated in many competitions without me, so it's more me that needs to keep up. But after today everything feels like good old times" she laughs praising her crew - Anna Holmdahl tactician, Jenny Axhede genoa trimmer, Elin Åderman mast, Elisabeth Nilsson pit and Annika Carlunger on the bow.

Malin Källström, a friend of Marie from the same club, GKSS, organisers of the Swedish Match Cup, struggled today picking up three penalties and all of them in the match against - Marie! Two of the penalties she incurred during the pre-start and then picked up another when her boat accidentally hit a mark. Because she got two penalties in the pre-start she had to make one of them good directly at the start and was behind for the rest of the race.

"I have never had so many penalties in one match ever before and it wasn't a pleasant experience," Källström complained. "Now we have to win all our matches tomorrow to make it to the semi-finals." On board her crew is: Madeleine Magnusson and Marie Öberg genoa trimmers, Anna Skarenhed mainsheet, Anna Bjurström mast and Nina Barne bow.

Danish Nina Braestrup-Petersen and Annette Ström scored equally well as Malin
with two wins and two losses. They are followed by Claire Leroy, with just one win in four races and Italian Sabrina Gurioli who was beaten in all of her races.

The round robin series women's cup will continue Tuesday morning and the round robin 'open cup' starts after the lunch break. In Women's Cup the four highest finishers make it through to the semi-finals, which will be sailed on Wednesday afternoon.

Results:
1. Betsy Alison, USA, 3 wins - 1 loss
= Marie Björling, SWE, 3-1
= Lotte Meldgaard-Pedersen, DEN, 3-1
4. Malin Källström, SWE, 2-2
= Nina Braestrup-Petersen, DEN, 2-2
= Annette Ström, DEN, 2-2
7. Claire Leroy, FRA, 1-3
8. Sabrina Gurioli, ITA, 0-4