Match Racing - 2001 Swedish Match Cup Overall

by Shawn McBride 8 Jul 2001 17:05 BST

COUTTS CLAIMS SWEDISH MATCH CUP CROWN

Swedish Match Tour Year 2 Champion Magnus Holmberg Finishes Third

Russell Coutts of the Alinghi Challenge for the America's Cup has won the Swedish Match Cup, the eighth and final event of Swedish Match Tour Year 2 in Marstrand, Sweden. The victory was especially trying for the skipper as he battled food poisoning and dehydration over the last two days of the regatta.

In spite of his ailments however, Coutts, the only man to win an Olympic Gold Medal and the America's Cup, as well as the author of a book on match racing tactics, left no doubt to those lining the Kvornberget cliffs of Marstrand, that he is a master match racer.

After dropping the first match in the first-to-three-wins final, Coutts survived a penalty in a tight second match to even the score with Pillot at one all. Coutts then sailed clear of Pillot in cleanly winning the finals' third and fourth matches.

This is Coutts' second win on the Swedish Match Tour. He previously won the Colorcraft Gold Cup in Bermuda last October.

The day began with the largest of disappointments as Sweden's Magnus Holmberg and his Team Stora Enso crew squandered the 2-0 lead in the best-of-five semifinals they had established on Saturday. Holmberg was swept three matches to zero by his French opponent and saw his goal of winning the regatta he helped create, while working for the Royal Gothenberg Yacht Club, fall short.

Joining Holmberg on the sideline was his fellow countryman Bjorn Hansen who lost the third straight, and final, match of his semifinal tilt to Coutts.

Holmberg was able to regain a small measure of satisfaction in the all-Swedish petit finals however by defeating Hansen, representing the Royal Stockholm Yacht Club, 2- 0 to finish third.

A five-to-eight knot easterly wind battled the seabreeze all day providing fuel for these competitors' engines. Afternoon clouds offered welcome relief from the intense heat and humidity which marked the final days of the regatta.

Team Alinghi Release:

Team Alinghi 3 - Luc Pillot 1 - The Team Alinghi, composed of Russell Coutts, Ernesto Bertarelli, Simon Daubney, Warwick Fleury and Pieter Van Nieuwenhuyzen, brilliantly won the final of the Swedish Match Cup, held in Marstrand, Sweden, in front of thousands of spectators. The Swedish Match Cup is the World Cup of match-racing. Although out of the circuit since his victory at the Colorcraft Gold Cup, last autumn, Coutts and his team qualified easily for the final. Luc Pillot, former Olympic champion, gave them a hard time, winning the first race and challenging them until the last leg. Competing for the first time at this level, Ernesto Bertarelli, President of the Alinghi Challenge said he was impressed by the level of competition. “The great thing, beside our result, is that we were a great Team. The atmosphere on board was excellent.” Also competing in the Swedish Match Cup for the Alinghi Challenge, Jochen Schuemann, Brad Butterworth, Dean Phipps, Marco Constant and Peter Van Niekerk finished at a good seventh place.

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