Ready for Marstrand

Top teams head for next week's Match Cup Sweden

12 of the world’s best match race skippers are confirmed to do battle next week in Match Cup Sweden, the fourth stage of the World Match Racing Tour. Included among these are the first seven currently topping the Tour leaderboard, with racing scheduled to commence for the Open division on 1 July and end on Sunday 6 July in Marstrand. At stake are valuable points towards the World Championship, not to mention a piece of the US$200,000 prize money purse.

Teams entered for the event include: current Tour leader Ian Williams (GBR) and his Team Pindar; Brasil Sailing Cup winner Paolo Cian (ITA) and his Team Shosholoza; Bjorn Hansen (SWE) and his Alandia Sailing Team, last year’s champions in Marstrand; three members of the French Match Racing Team: Sebastian Col, fresh from his win at Korea Match Cup two weeks ago, Damien Iehl, winner at Match Race Germany and Mathieu Richard; Jes Gram-Hansen (DEN) and his Trifork Racing Team; perennial favorite Magnus Holmberg (SWE) of the Victory Challenge; Peter Gilmour (AUS) and his PST Team, prior winners in Marstrand; Mattias Rahm (SWE) and the Stena Bulk Racing Team; young talent Torvar Mirsky (AUS) and the Mirsky Racing Team, who made their Tour debut in Marstrand last year; and Olympian Ben Ainslie (GBR) of Team Origin, making his first Tour appearance since winning the Allianz Cup in San Francisco.

Racing will be in equally-matched DS37 yachts specially designed and built for match race sailing for a crew of five team members. The format for the event will be a Round Robin over 1-3 July to determine the eight teams that advance to the quarter finals on 4 July, with the Semi-Final and Final rounds set for Saturday and Sunday, 5-6 July. Spectator interest and media coverage will be heavy in Marstrand, one of the most popular events on the World Tour.

Swedish TV8 broadcasts the Corporate Event Marketing Forum seminar and Studio Virtanen is broadcasting directly from Marstrand for Wednesday to Saturday. 1080 Media and other Swedish broadcasters will be on hand, as well as numerous members of the Swedish and International press covering the event.

“We are extremely happy over this star filled starting field, it shows that we in a short time have been able to create an international world-class event of the highest standard,” says Jan Torstenson, Managing director at Brandspot, who organises Match Cup Sweden in Sports cooperation with the Royal Gothenburg Yacht Club (GKSS). “Our goal is to establish Match Cup Sweden as one of the very large international events in Sweden, together with our athletes and strong sponsoring companies.”

Entrants
Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin
Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Shosholoza
Sebastien Col (FRA) K Challenge/French Match Racing Team
Peter Gilmour (AUS) PST Team
Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Alandia Sailing Team
Jes Gram Hansen (DEN) Trifork Racing
Magnus Holmberg (SWE) Victory Challenge
Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team
Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team
Mattias Rahm (SWE) Stena Bulk Sailing Team
Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
Ian Williams (GBR) Team Pindar