International line-up heads to final day of knockout rounds at Gothenburg Match Cup
by Ben Blake 13 May 2017 21:11 BST
12-14 May 2017
Australia's Mirsky Racing Team leads the international charge into the knockout rounds after a 7-1 score today. Denmark's ART Sailing also look to upset the local party with Patrik Sturesson's Cape Crow Vikings and Måns Holmberg with his CFA Sports the only locals left flying the Swedish colours.
Cape Crow Vikings came out of the blocks flying this morning winning two from two, which sent them from 3rd to 1st at the conclusion of Round Robin 1. Sturesson is a successful match racing skipper but struggled with performance on the World Match Racing Tour last season when moving to catamarans. The team spent this winter getting time in the M32 in the Monaco Winter Series which Patrik said "Has been very important for us and experience enables manoeuvres to just happen so that we can keep our eyes out of the boat." Despite the early winning streak the team found themselves battling in the middle of the leaderboard by the day's end and their semifinal spot was only secured during the final race of today, beating Team Anna.
Just missing out on the knockout rounds was Caprice Match Racing Team. "We need to learn the catamaran game because we struggle in some manoeuvres." Commented skipper Kim Kling. "We are used to having to adapt to different boats at match racing events so a little more time in the M32 and we will be dangerous." Kling plans to compete at further World Tour level WMRT events this year and make qualification to a Championship level event for the 2018 season.
Topping the leaderboard after the round robin stage is Australia's Mirsky Racing Team. Looking back on today's windier conditions Lachy Gilmour, tactician to the team, commented, "We do like the breeze, Perth is a windy location. We are still working on our light wind game so we're hoping the breeze stays in tomorrow."
Local Gothenburg based team CFA Sports came into today with just three points – a far cry from progression to the semifinals. The team had a heavy debrief with coach Magnus Holmberg overnight and came back today to win six of seven matches. Skipper Måns Holmberg put a large part of the success down to good starts. "We spotted yesterday that the line was heavily pin favoured and with a repeat of that today we came with a plan to win the pin every race."
Closing out the semifinal line-up is ART Sailing, skippered by Joachim Aschenbrenner. Consistency has been key to the success of this Danish team, which will make them difficult to beat in the knockout stages with a scheduled first-to-three-point semifinal starting Sunday morning.
Knockout matches begin tomorrow in Gothenburg with the semifinals and by the end of the day we will have one Gothenburg Match Cup champion and two qualifiers to Championship level event GKSS Match Cup Sweden.
For detailed results, video and photos visit wmrt.com