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Great start for Holmberg and Hansen in Brasil |
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 Brilliant sunshine and a steady 10-12 knot easterly breeze gave the perfect start to today’s first day of match race competition in the Brasil Sailing Cup, the year’s first event of the World Match Racing Tour. Ian Williams (GBR) and his Team Pindar are showing their World Champion style, being undefeated among their five other rivals in Group A, while WMRT veteran Magnus Holmberg (SWE) shares the top of the leader board also on three wins.
Among the six teams in Group B, Paolo Cian (ITA) of Team Shosholoza and Bjorn Hansen (SWE) of Alandia Sailing Team emerged undefeated in their two flights of the day. Group B will be first to resume round-robin competition in the morning.
“We had a good day today but it wasn't all straight forward,” said Holmberg. “We had a tough match against Adam Minoprio, he won the start and led round the first mark, and then we had a luffing duel down the run but couldn't get around him. It was close at the last mark and we just managed to pass him down the run to the finish.” Minoprio (NZL) of Emirates Team New Zealand, BlackMatch Racing is just one of several new and talented teams entering WMRT competition in this event.
Williams, the reigning WMRT leader and World Champion, also had his hands full in his match against young Torvar Mirsky (AUS) and his Mirsky Racing Team. In his match against Mirsky an aggressive pre-start saw Williams penalized early on but with 30 seconds left to the start an infringement by the young Australian resulted in a Red Flag immediate penalty handed to him by the Umpires.
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