Gold Cup starts tomorrow

Battle lines drawn up for Bermuda match racing

The battle lines are drawn for an early start tomorrow morning when the top-seeded match racing sailors in the world begin a 'best of three knockout series' here in Hamilton harbour as the Investors Guaranty's presentation of The King Edward VII Gold Cup gets underway. This is the third stop on the Swedish Match Tour.

After five days of racing in the qualifying rounds, eight unseeded teams, including two women's teams will face off against some of the best known sailors in the world including six time Gold Cup winner and three time America's Cup helmsman Russell Coutts of New Zealand, Gold Cup reigning champion Peter Gilmour of Australia and America's Cup helmsman James Spithill of Australia. While the seeded skippers are active on the Swedish Match Tour where they match race throughout the world, they are also sailors who well know that anything can happen on the racecourse.

In ISAF Match Race rankings and on the Swedish Match tour Ed Baird (USA) is ranked #1 and stands as the top seed. In ISAF rankings, Mathieu Richard (France) is #3, Peter Gilmour (Australia) is #4, James Spithill (USA/Australia) is #7, Staffan Lindberg is #12 (Finland), Bjorn Hansen is #15 and Russell Coutts (New Zealand) is #24. On the Swedish Match Tour, Coutts and Gilmour art tied for 3rd after Baird. Lindberg and Richard are 6th and 7th.

"When we face the unseeded skippers tomorrow they start out with a tremendous advantage as they have been racing all week. We know that if the unseeded skippers maintain their normal cycle they will do well," Gilmour said. "But, we will go out there tomorrow to break this advantage. We focus on winning and we won't deviate from our path."

The returning seeded competitors have strong ties to Bermuda and they expect to hit the water sailing tomorrow at the 9 a.m. start.

"It is a beautiful place to be and this event has been innovative since the early days. It is always great to be in the middle of this caliber of racing and of course it would be wonderful to win The King Edward VII Gold Cup," said American Ed Baird, two-time world champion in match racing." And, we hope to be here until the final match. When you come to The King Edward VII Gold Cup you always book your flight hoping that you get lucky and sail until the end."

"Bermuda is a gorgeous place and it is fabulous how well attuned and well-equiped it is for sailing," Gilmour said. "It is always great to be here and it absolutely gets you in the mood to go racing."