World Match Racing Tour Announces 2024 Championship Season

World Match Racing Tour Announces 2024 Championship Season

February 14 17:39 UTC by WMRT

The World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) today announced its 2024 championship season with a schedule of 15 events in 10 countries, concluding with the WMRT Finals in Shenzhen Bao’an, China in December.

This year marks the 24th consecutive year of WMRT, a special event of World Sailing, the world’s longest running professional sailing series and the sport’s global governing body.

The 2024 World Tour begins in April with back-to-back events: the Ficker Cup in Long Beach, California, and the 59th Congressional Cup, WMRT’s founding event hosted by the Long Beach Yacht Club. The Congressional Cup is the world’s oldest continuously held sailing match racing regatta.

2024 will see two inaugural WMRT events: the 30th GKSS Match Cup (July 1-6) in Marstrand, Sweden, and the 72nd Bermuda Gold Cup (October 29-November 3). The event will return in 2024. The King Edward VII Gold Cup, awarded at the Bermuda Games, is one of the most coveted match racing trophies in the world and has been won by many, including Chris Dixon (New Zealand), Peter Gilmour (Australia) and Russell Coutts (New Zealand). has been won by some of the biggest names in the sailing world. Eddie Warden-Owen (Great Britain), James Spithill (Australia), Ben Ainslie (Great Britain), Ian Williams (Great Britain), Taylor Canfield (USA), Jonny Berntson (Sweden), Francesco Bruni (Italy) ).

The WMRT season consists of ‘World Tour’ and ‘World Championship’ events, each organized as an open match racing event under the official World Sailing Rules and open to male and female skippers and mixed teams. “World Championship” level events are awarded higher points on the annual WMRT leaderboard.

“We are delighted to announce another exciting year of world-class match racing events for the 2024 WMRT season,” commented WMRT Executive Director James Pleasance. “Last year, 72 teams and over 280 sailors competed across the Tour, a testament to the popularity and growth of match racing as one of the most accessible and affordable sporting competitions. .”

The 2024 schedule will see the team participate in events in Porto Montenegro and Helsinki in May, Lake Ledro in Italy in June, and Sweden and France in July. In August, four consecutive World Tour events in the United States will once again make up the U.S. Grand Slam, with teams traveling from New York’s Oyster Bay (Oak Cliff International and Thompson Cup) to the Chicago Grand Slam and Detroit Cup. You will be invited to .

Singapore’s DBS Marina Bay Cup will also rejoin the tour this year, holding a Match 40 in the heart of Marina Bay in central Singapore from September 20 to 22. The event will be held on the same weekend as the F1 Singapore Grand Prix.

Following its debut in 2023, the WMRT season finale will return to Bao’an District, Shenzhen, China as part of a multi-year hosting agreement. In the 2023 final in December, Great Britain’s Ian Williams (China One Ningbo) overcame difficult conditions to win the seventh race in a thrilling final against New Zealand’s Gavin Brady (True Blue Racing USA). Won the Match Race World Championship title. New Zealand’s Megan Thomson and her 2.0 Racing team finished third, making her the first female skipper to finish on the podium in a WMRT final.

2024 World Match Racing Tour Schedule

1. Ficker Cup, Long Beach, California, USA, April 13-16
2. *Congress Cup, Long Beach, California, April 24-28
3. Porto Montenegro Match Race, May 10-12
4. NJK Open Spring Cup, Finland, May 24-26
5. OM International Ledro Match Race, Italy, June 21-23
6. *GKSS Match Cup Marstrand, Sweden July 1-6
7. International French Match Race, Pornichet, France, July 19-21
8. Oak Cliff International, Oyster Bay, New York, USA, August 3-6
9. Thompson Cup, Oyster Bay, New York, USA, August 8-11
10. Chicago Grand Slam, USA, August 16-18
11. Detroit Cup, USA, August 22-25
12. DBS Marina Bay Cup, Singapore September 20-22
13. Szczecin Match Race, Poland, October 18-20
14. *Bermuda Gold Cup, October 29th to November 3rd
15. WMRT Final Shenzhen Bao’an, China, December 10th-15th

*world championship event
**Race Day Published