Practise race

Skippers eye up the competition as a prelude to tomorrow's start of the Marseille International Match Race

Today's practice sessions took place in superb weather conditions, under a sunny sky with a WSW breeze of 7-8 knots building to 12-13 in the afternoon. Conditions should be similar tomorrow, with the wind dropping off in the afternoon.

Despite the informal nature of today's practice matches, they were taken very seriously. The competitors were measuring each other up, and there is no doubt a truly high quality event is going to start tomorrow.

Tomorrow the real stuff starts. The first matches of the Round Robin will take place with the first start planned for 10am.

Which of the ten crews on the starting list will be ahead tomorrow ? Mathieu Richard's, who was second last year? Or will it be one of the four America's Cup teams: Sébastien Col (K-Challenge), Philippe Presti (Luna Rossa), Peter Holmberg (Alinghi) or Jes Gram-Hansen (Mascalzone Latino – Capitalia Team)?

Or why not Paolo Cian - Team Viano Mercedes Benz, Dimitri Deruelle, Eugeny Neugodnikov, Staffan Lindberg or Matteo Simoncelli ?

One thing is for sure – only technical and tactical skills will allow them to beat their rivals.