Minoprio new world match racing champion

Match racing has a new world champion. New Zealander Adam Minoprio and his crew had already secured the title when they defeated Ben Ainslie's yacht in the final of the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia yesterday.

Minoprio and his ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing crew of Tom Powrie, David Swete, Nick Blackman and Dan McLean defeated a TeamOrigin boat that included triple Olympic gold medalist Ainslie on helm and double Olympic gold, Ian Percy.

Ian Williams, world champion for the previous two years, was forced to concede his title in the round robin stage when he was unable to progress to the later stages.

Ainslie - absent for part of the season - plans to do the full tour next year in order to give him a better chance of securing the world title in what has become a high quality event attracting much of the world's best match racing talent.


Monsoon Cup Results
1st Adam Minoprio (NZL) BlackMatch Racing Team
2nd Ben Ainslie (GBR) Team Origin
3rd Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR Racing
4th Sebastien Col (FRA) French Match Racing Team/ALL4ONE
5th Mathieu Richard (FRA) French Match Racing Team
6th Phil Robertson (NZL) WAKA Racing
7th Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team
8th Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team

Final tour Standings
1. Adam Minoprio (NZL) ETNZ/BlackMatch Racing 138 Points
2. Torvar Mirsky (AUS) Mirsky Racing Team 97 Points
3. Ben Ainslie, (GBR) Team Origin 95 Points
4. Peter Gilmour (AUS) YANMAR 93 Points
5. Mathieu Richard (FRA), French Match Racing Team Racing 79 Points
6. Ian Williams (GBR) Team Pindar 75 Points
7. Sebastien Col, (FRA) French Match Racing Team 55 Points
8. Damien Iehl (FRA) French Match Racing Team 48 Points

Wind and puff at the BBC

If you, like me, tuned in to watch the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year event last night, you may have been disappointed but not surprised to hear little mention of sailing.

If you watch BBC and you want to know about sailing, it seems, you are told only about Ben Ainslie and no-one else. If Ainslie's fellow gold Olympic medalists were mentioned, I didn't hear it. There was no mention either of the Vendee Globe, the Volvo Ocean Race, or Ian William's second world title.

I have no complaints about Chris Hoy, a deserving winner, or the accolades reserved for the outstanding British cycling team, but there could have been some mention of the sailing team which brought home from China four of the 11 sailing gold medals awarded.

The whole event, I thought, was poor. Instead of showing us the outstanding performances in an outstanding year for British sport, the BBC gave full reign to the arty types and so we saw all kinds of presentational guff mixed with hokey poetry.

Great sporting moments, Like Usain Bolt's magnificent 100 metres run, don't need dressing up, but instead of seeing the run we had flash after flash of repetitive clips with fancy graphics and unusual camera angles. Instead of seeing the cyclists winning their events we joined them on a training run. Why?

Sport doesn't need to be jazzed up in this way. Leave that to corporate branding experts who need to make tins of beans look more alluring. There is purity in human excellence and the BBC should not forget that.

World title for Williams in Malaysia

Ian Williams, sponsored by Bahrain Team Pindar, won his second consecutive ISAF World Match Racing title today, at the Monsoon Cup in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, the final event of the 2008 World Match Racing Tour.

He beat one of his closest rivals Mathieu Richard, of Team French Spirit, in the quarter final stages, then secured the title when Sebastian Col, French Team K Challenge, nearest to Williams on points, lost to former World Match Racing Champion Peter Gilmour, of PST.

Williams and his crew of Gerry Mitchell, Mark Nicholls, Simon Shaw and Richard Sydenham, knew the had to sail out of their skins to win as the three leading crews were closely matched on points. Sailing aggressively from the start today, they won three straight matches against Richard, ending the Frenchman's championship hopes.

Williams, who was reigning champion going in to the Cup match, said: "We are absolutely thrilled. It was quite a strange way to win as we were out on the water when the Col/Gilmour match was decided. It all came together today, the crew were amazing and we really sailed like champions – I don’t think we have ever beaten Richard 3–0 before."

"We will be giving it our all tomorrow to reach the final of the Monsoon Cup and hope to make it a double celebration."

Williams needs one more race win to guarantee his place in the final of the Monsoon Cup, where he would then face either Peter Gilmour in a repeat of the 2007 final, or Torvar Mirsky of Mirsky Racing Team.

Now in its fourth year, the cup is contested by some of the best match racing sailors in the world. Twelve crews were competing on identical Foundation 36 Yachts for a share of $295,000 prize money. The entries this year included Britain’s three times Olympic Gold medallist and ISAF Rolex Sailor of the Year, Ben Ainslie, of Team Origin. Ainslie, who could only compete in a few of the match racing events this year, due to his Olympic commitments, is to contest the whole of the championship next year.

I hope the BBC has made a note of Williams' success. The UK doesn't have too many world champions and he deserves to be among those recognised during the annual Sports Personality of the Year evening on December 14.

Danish Open - World Match Racing Tour 2008

I'm packing my bags for Frederikshavn which is hosting the Danish round of the World Match Racing Tour. The plan is to profile Ian Williams, the world match racing champion. I met Ian over a year ago in Antigua where we exchanged life stories while propping up a bar in English Harbour (he's the one in the light coloured cap).

Unfortunately I forgot everything he told me (which might be a good thing). This time I plan to have my notebook and pen with me. During the Beijing Olympics If you saw the way Ben Ainslie was edging out his nearest rival, Zach Railey, in the final race of the Finn class - the one that had to be abandoned and re-run - you could get an idea of how match racing works.

When one yacht is racing another - as they do in the America's Cup - tactics are everything. Often the boat that gets its nose in front first will try to cover any moves by its competitor.

Williams is a master of this kind of sailing. If Ainslie joins the full tour next year as expected, it will make for some exciting head-to-heads. The only reason we have not seen Williams in an Olympic event, incidentally, is that the men's match racing discipline was voted out of the Olympics before Athens in 2004.

It's great that in the UK we have so much to cheer among our medal haul. Yet only Ainslie among the UK Olympic sailors could be said to be anything like a household name, although many of the rest of them, such as Iain Percy, are becoming well known within the sailing fraternity.

It's a reflection of our society, perhaps, that a nonentity such as Jade Goody, famous only because she appeared on a dire mainstream TV programme, would probably garner more recognition in a street survey than any of the UK's Olympic medal-winning sailors.

When a recent street survey was carried out in the US and people were asked if they could name any sailors the top three were: 1. Christopher Columbus, 2.Ted Turner, 3. Popeye!

That's why I want to write about Williams - not that the FT magazine is exactly mainstream - because people of his calibre deserve better recognition outside sailing. He is world champion for goodness sake!

The last time I saw him, incidentally, was during Cowes week when he was heading towards the pontoons after winning the Laser SB3 class. It was so far ahead of the field I couldn't see the second finisher. That's how good he is.