Great Britian’s Ben Ainslie has won a lot of gold, but never the King Edward VII Gold Cup. Today he moved into the quarterfinals of the Argo Group Gold Cup with a perfect 7-0 record thus far. That’s the first step toward the cup but Ben needs to learn a lesson from Ian Williams who was also 7-0 at this stage in 2008 and didn’t make it into the finals.
Today, Ainslie defeated Seb Col (FRA), Adam Minoprio (NZL) and Bjorn Hansen (SWE) on another flawless day of sailing for the multi medal Olympian. Ainslie doesn’t do much match racing but when he does he does it well.
All of the top two teams in each group automatically moved up to the quarterfinal stage. Joining Ainslie in the quarterfinals in second place at 4-3 is Adam Minoprio. Group 1 is represented by Eric Monnin (SUI) in first at 6-1 and Ian Williams (GBR) also 6-1. The top two in Group 3 were last year’s Gold cup winner Johnie Berntsson (SWE) at 6-1 and 2007 Gold Cup champion Mathieu Richard (FRA).
The remaining slots in the quarter finals will go to the top two in the repecharge round robin which is still in progress. The third and fourth finishers in each group made into the six-team round robin that will finish Friday morning.
As usual, the competition was fierce. Umpires handed out multiple penalties. Peter Gilmour (AUS) and Paula Lewin (BERMUDA) each got flagged today, and Damian Iehl got his second black flag of the event. This brings the total to eight black flags for the regatta and it is only about half way finished.
Bermuda’s other competitor Blythe Walker won all three of his races on the day. He first defeated Don Wilson, he then dispatched Charlie Enright before defeating Phil Robertson to move into 3rd place.
Racing continues Friday at 9:00AM with the last flights of the repercharge followed by quarter final action.
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