The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club’s 70th Gold Cup for the King Edward VII trophy returns to its traditional format this year with a field of 16 crews plotting to win the venerable trophy and the lion’s share of the $100,000 prize purse.
Scheduled May 11th – 16th, the King Edward VII Gold Cup is the second World Championship-level event of the World Match Racing Tour’s 2020 calendar. Such designation affords competitors greater points on the world tour leader-board and their qualification towards the WMRT Grand Final.
Among the 16 entrants are three past Gold Cup champions, including reigning champion Ian Williams (Lymington, England), two all-women crews, including the World No. 1 and No. 2-ranked skippers, and three dynamite youth crews under 25 years of age, including the reigning Youth World champion.
“It was a club decision to increase the size of the field to 16,” said event chairperson Leatrice Oatley, a Past Commodore of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. “We had a lot of interest expressed from potential competitors and after discussions with the PRO, David Campbell-James, from a scheduling perspective, it was decided the event could accommodate 16 teams. Everyone involved is very happy and supportive that we’ve expanded the event.”
Early entrants include three two-time winners: Williams, the reigning champion who also won in 2006, Johnie Berntsson (Stenungsund, Sweden), who won in 2008 and ’14 and who has also finished runner-up four times, and Taylor Canfield (Miami, Fla.), the 2012 and ’18 champion.
The all-women crews are led by World No. 1-ranked Pauline Courtois (Brest, France), who’s back for a second try at the Gold Cup after debuting last year, and World No. 2-ranked Anna Östling (Lerum, Sweden), a two-time Women’s Match Racing World champion (2014, ’16) who also placed 2nd last year in the Women’s International Match Race Series.
• Johnie Berntsson (49, Stenungsund, Sweden) – World No. 7 Open Match Race Rankings,
• Taylor Canfield (31, Miami, USA) – World No. 31 Open Match Race Rankings, 7th , two-time winner (2018, ’12)
• Pauline Courtois (30, Brest, France) – World No. 1 Women’s Match Race Rankings, 2nd King Edward VII Gold Cup
• Nicklas Dackhammar (30, Gothenburg, Sweden) – World No. 15 Open Match Race Rankings, 4th , 6th place 2018
• Nick Egnot-Johnson (21, Auckland, New Zealand) – World No. 2 Open Match Race Rankings, first New Zealand Match Racing Championship, Nespresso Youth Match Racing Championship and Match Race Germany
• Lance Fraser (26, Toronto, Canada) – World No. 38 Open Match Race Rankings, 6th
• Tom Grimes (21, Belmont, New South Wales, Australia) – World No. 18 Open Match Race Rankings, reigning Youth Match Racing World Champion, 1st King Edward VII Gold Cup
• Maxime Mesnil (30, Le Havre, France) – World No. 4 Open Match Race Rankings, 2nd King Edward VII Gold Cup
• Torvar Mirsky (33, Sydney, Australia) – World No. 27 Open Match Race Rankings, 5th King Edward VII Gold Cup, 5th place in 2019
• Eric Monnin (44, Immensee, Switzerland) – World No. 1 Open Match Race Rankings, 13th , 8th place in 2019
• Anna stling (35, Lerum, Sweden) – World No. 2 Women’s Match Race Rankings, World No. 36 Open Match Race Rankings, first King Edward VII Gold Cup, two-time Women’s Match Racing World champion
• Harry Price (24, Sydney, Australia) – World No. 5 Open Match Race Rankings, 2nd , 3rd place in 2019,
• Jelmer van Beek (25, The Hague, Netherlands) – World No. 11 Open Match Race Rankings, 1st King Edward VII Gold Cup
• Ian Williams (42, Lymington, England) – World No. 3 Open Match Race Rankings, 12th King Edward VII Gold Cup, two-time champion (2019, ’06), six-time Match Racing Worlds champion
• Patryk Zbroja (42, Szczecin, Poland) – World No. 9 Open Match Race Rankings, 1st King Edward VII Gold Cup, 2018 Polish Open Match Racing Champion
|
