Light first day

Baird secures 100% record at Marseille International Match Race

There was sunshine everywhere on the first day of racing at the Marseille International Match Race on Thursday. The wind however was not as forthcoming, averaging five knots, peaking at seven, and finally fading completely. Racing was stopped at 4pm.

The first 15 matches of the round robin were raced between 11am and 4pm. This means one third of the races have been completed at this stage.

Ed Baird, one of the top favourites of the regatta won both his matches against Paolo Cian and Iain Percy, whereas Chris Dickson, another favourite, won two out of three.

Sébastien Col and Mathieu Richard were the most successful just behind the favourites, winning 3 out of 5 and 2 out of 3 respectively.

Iain Percy and Dimitri Deruelle weren't as lucky - neither won any of their matches today.

With only a third of the matches in the first round robin behind them, the crews still have a long way to go to qualify for the next rounds. If weather conditions allow it, and nobody is betting on that, the next round will be another round robin with the first six boats from the first round. If not, the top four will go straight into quarter finals, semis and the final.

Today's results don't really allow you to predict the future. Apart from Baird (100%) and Deruelle and Percy (0%), all the other boats have between 50% and 67% success rate.

	Raced	Won
Mathieu Richard	5	3
Ed Baird	2	2
Ian Williams	4	2
Staffan Lindberg	4	2
Sébastien Col	3	2
Chris Dickson	3	2
Philippe Presti	2	1
Paolo Cian	2	1
Dimitri Deruelle	3	0
Iain Percy	2	0