Korea Match Cup line-up

Richard and Minoprio lead the field heading into stage three of the World Match Racing Tour

The world’s match racing elite will converge on Gyeonggi province in South Korea next week for Korea Match Cup, Stage 3 of the ISAF World Match Racing Tour  12 teams will take to the tidal flats of Jeongok and Jebu on South Korea's west coast, to fight for further valuable World Match Racing Tour score points. This is the first of the 2010 tour events to be staged outside of Europe and will provide a new developed Asian marine arena for the highly competitive teams.

As well as the skippers ranked first and second in the overall WMRT standings - Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team and Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing – there will be the addition of Francesco Bruni (ITA) Azzurra, hurriedly heading for Korea from La Maddalena, followed the Louis Vuitton Trophy, as well as 2009 Korea Match Cup winner Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Italia. New names to the regata following their selection by wild card entries include 23 year old Phil Robertson (NZL) WAKA Racing, winner of the recent Asian Match Racing Championship and Korean national Gunwoo Park (KOR) who only started match racing in November 2009.

“It’s great to come back to the Tour series again after the LV Trophy, I feel the more racing a skipper can schedule into their calendar then the better equipped they will be to perform at international events. Match racing comes down to practice, the more you tune your mind into winning and becoming a seamless team, then the more certain you will be to do well and improve as a group”, said Bruni.

Peter Gilmour (AUS) Ynamar Racing is also heading to Asia, when asked to comment on the favourite to win Korea Match Cup he looked at the statistics, “All teams are treated equally on the Tour, going into the round robin at Stage 3 we have an 8% chance of winning, as we build through to the quarter-finals and semi-finals those chances increase to 12% and 25% respectively. As the remaining teams hit the finals they have a 50% chance of winning however, this analysis is affected by each team’s performance and skill set”.

With the change in time clocks for the majority of the entered teams and a totally alternative set of race course elements, Korea may provide some surprise results early on in the regatta.

Park, the only Korean skipper entered, is excited to meet and race against the world’s crème de la crème of match racing. “I am really proud to be able to race against America’s Cup level teams, I hope I can learn from their skills and perhaps win some races against the less experienced helms”.

Korea Match Cup racing will start on 9 June 9th, culminating in a closing ceremony and a Stage 3 champion on June 13th. All eyes will be on any notable changes to the WMRT standings after Stage 3.

Korea Match Cup 2010 line-up:

Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing
Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Italia
Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team
Francesco Bruni (ITA) Azzurra
Ian Williams (GBR) Team GAC Pindar
Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
Bjorn Hansen (SWE) Gill Global Team
Bertrand Pace (FRA) Aleph Sailing Team
Gunwoo Park (KOR)
Johnie Berntsson (SWE) Berntsson Sailing Team
Phil Robertson (NZL) WAKA Racing

2010 ISAF World Match Racing Tour Standings
(AfterStage 2 of 10)

1 - Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team - 40 Points
2 - Adam Minoprio (NZL) BlackMatch Racing - 33 Points
3 - Jesper Radich (SWE) Radich Racing Team - 20 Points
4 - Ben Ainslie (GBR) TEAMORIGIN -20 Points
5 - Paolo Cian (ITA) Team Italia - 16 Points
  - Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team - 16 Points
7 - Francesco Bruni (ITA) Azzurra - 15 Points
8 - Ian Williams (GBR) Team GAC Pindar - 10 Points
  - Sebastian Col (FRA) ALL 4 ONE -10 Points