The quarter finals on Friday in Match Cup Sweden ended up with two Swedes, Magnus Holmberg and Mattias Rahm, qualifying the for semi-finals on Sunday. French Mathieu Richard and Australian Torvar Mirsky took the other two spots.

Medium easterly winds set the standards for today’s races and allowed French Mathieu Richard to show his great shape and hungriness for medals by beating last year’s winner Björn Hansen.

“It’s been an excellent day. Björn Hansen is very skilled, but we had good speed, manoeuvres and tactics” says Richard.

Three straight wins gave him the first of the four spots in the semi finals, which means that he can choose between meeting the last one from the quarter-finals or whomever he wants. But yet he hasn’t made any choices concerning future adversary.

“We will discuss it in the team to find out who we want to challenge.”

Young Australian Torvar Mirsky was to race his mentor and fellow-countryman Peter Gilmour. And it took five matches to settle the winner; a hard day.

“Exhausting! I’m not even sure it’s over yet. There were so many twists and turns in this stage, I’m really burned out”, says Torvar Mirsky.

And he admits that sailing against six time Match Cup Sweden winner Peter Gilmour is not an easy thing.

“There are many deciding moments, and the racing is so close, it could really go either way. Something really small can easily decide the match, and once you’re ahead, it’s easier to extend that lead than try and catch up from behind. But Gilly is really tenacious, he never gives up, so racing him is really hard.”

By the day the winds turned towards north and the course had to be changed. The new course was shorter than the previous and the sailors had to go three turns. The short course didn’t allow the skippers to show their skills, so best start and best on the upwind have been proved the recipe of the day. Mattias Rahm and Jes Gram-Hansen had some really tight races with a lot of tacking duels.

“It doesn’t get better than that for the spectators” Rahm says. “It was a magnificent feeling to make a tack just in front of the spectators at Strandverket and hear the applauses and shouts. It gave us an extra push for victory.”

A record crowd of 35 000 visitors are estimated to have watched the tight races on Friday. Five flights had to be sailed before the finalists could be settled. Magnus Holmberg were close to be sent back home. “The conditions were hard today. The light breezes were challenging and tactically demanding” he says.  

So what does it take to win?

“I hope for some good, tight racing. We have to make sure to pull this together, and if we manage, I think we have a good chance.”