Björling into the final

A report from the women's semi-finals at the Swedish Match Cup

Wednesday afternoon saw the start of the ladies semi-finals in the Swedish Match Cup in the south harbor entrance at Marstrand.

Marie Björling and her Team Schenker secured one place in the final through their 3-1 defeat of French woman Claire Leroy, after a very exciting last match in the weak afternoon winds.

"It feels great and now we are looking forward to the finals on Saturday. It’s always worse to sail the semis than the finals," said Björling .

In the second semi-final Linda Rahm first won two straight matches with her Team Koncentra, but then Malin Millbourn and her Team Santa Maria came back with two victories. The last and concluding match will be sailed on Saturday morning.

"We would have liked to sail another match tonight," said Millbourn "but Linda doesn’t agree at all."

"It was the right decision by the race committee to interrupt the sailing in those weak and shifting winds," countered Rahm.

Marie Björling and her crew of Anna Holmdahl, Elisabeth Nilsson, Jenny Axhede, Anna-Karin Öjerskog and Annika Carlunger, practically gave the first semi-final away to the French woman after bad surveillance. They made up for their mistake by taking three victories in a row, even if from the spectator platform it looked like that the last one was close:

"We were never worried," admitted Björling. "Claire had the lead, but also a penalty to recover. We knew that she would need about another 20 seconds and she never had that a big lead."

Björling adds that she wishes Saturday will come up soon. "Regardless of whom we are going to meet I think our chances to victory are good."

Preliminary results from the semi finals, ladies, Swedish Match Cup.

Marie Björling, SWE – Clare Leroy, FRA, 3-1
Linda Rahm, SWE – Malin Millbourn, SWE, 2-2