Swedish Match 2003-4

First match race series of the new season gets underway this week in Denmark reports Shawn McBride

Seven America’s Cup veterans, two local skippers and a new force on the match racing scene headline the early roster of skippers for Danish Open 2003, the first event on Swedish Match Tour 2003/2004, running from 13-17 August at the KDY/SKS Match Race Center on Skovshoved Harbor, north of Copenhagen.

The two remaining skippers, the top Dane and top international finisher, will be added following this weekend’s Petit Danish Open qualifier. Among those competing at the Petit Danish Open is Australian Peter Gilmour of Team Pizza La, a three-time world match racing champion and head of the OneWorld Challenge.

Leading the confirmed list are Denmark’s Jesper Radich, recently crowned Swedish Match Tour 2002/2003 champion; Jes Gram-Hansen of Denmark, the defending event champion; and Sweden’s Magnus Holmberg of Team StoraEnso who won the regatta in 2000 and 2001, but was unable to compete last year due to his America’s Cup commitments with the Victory Challenge.

Also competing at Danish Open 2003 are two frequent competitors on the world’s premier professional sailing series, Poland’s Karol Jablonski of the Jablonski Sailing Team, runner-up at last month’s Swedish Match Cup, who finished fifth on Swedish Match Tour 2002/2003 and Italy’s Paolo Cian of the Riviera di Rimini Sailing Team, former helmsman of the Mascalzone Latino America’s Cup challenge and eighth place finisher on Swedish Match Tour 2002/2003.

Five more America’s Cup veterans dialing up in the event-supplied DS 37 Match Racers next week will be Denmark’s Jesper Bank, helmsman for the Victory Challenge and runner-up to Holmberg at Danish Open 2001; Luc Pillot formerly a member of the Le Defi Areva afterguard and a familiar face on the Swedish Match Tour; Great Britain’s Andy Beadsworth of Team Henri Lloyd, helmsman for the GBR Challenge in Auckland; sailing legend Roy Heiner, the “Flying Dutchman,” a member of the Oracle BMW Racing Team, competing at his first Swedish Match Tour event; and American Kelvin Harrap who has not competed on the Swedish Match Tour in two years, but is a two-time America’s Cup competitor, most recently part of the OneWorld Challenge for America’s Cup 2003, and an accomplished ocean racer with two Whitbread/Volvo campaigns on his resume.