by Talbot Wilson

HAMILTON BERMUDA, September 2- Get ready for some the world’s best match race sailing October 7-12 on Bermuda’s Hamilton Harbour in the King Edward VII Gold Cup presented by Argo Group. Frenchman Mathieu Richard will be back in Bermuda in just over a month to defend his title in the 101st year of sailing for the spectacular golden trophy. In 2007, Richard defeated Bjorn Hansen of Sweden 2-0 in the finals to take the gold. Hansen will also return hoping to unseat the reigning champion. Great Britain’s Ian Williams, winner of the 2006 Gold Cup, will be on hand sailing hard to regain his championship form in the Bermuda classic.

The top match race sailors in the world will be on the line in Bermuda for the annual event organized by the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. Mathieu Richard is currently ranked first in the ISAF ‘Open” Match Race rankings, Williams is second, Paolo Cian of Italy is ranked third and Hansen, who was ranked fourth when the invitations went out in the spring, is now ranked sixth. The same skippers were the top four in the 2007 World Match Race Tour, but with Williams first and Richard second. Eleven of the twenty-four competitors are in the ISAF top twenty. Ian Williams and his team just scored a 3-0 victory at the conclusion of the Danish Open to win that World Match Race Tour event.

As the penultimate event on the Tour, teams will be looking to gather as many Tour points as possible to carry forward to the Monsoon Cup in Malaysia. Bermuda will be the place where the psychological games intensify.

This year’s event also welcomes Ben Ainslie of Team Origin fresh from his Olympic success in Beijing. Eric Monnin returns to Bermuda for his fifth consecutive Gold Cup, along with Bermuda’s threat for the gold, Blythe Walker.

Bermuda's best youth sailors will once again have the enviable pleasure and ultimate challenge of competing against the world's best Optimist dinghy sailors in the 2008 Renaissance Reinsurance Junior Gold Cup, October 9-12, sailed on Bermuda's Great Sound and in Hamilton Harbour adjacent to the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. This year, invitations were sent out to the Optimist Dinghy associations of 16 countries on 5 continents in an attempt to lure their best "Opti" sailors to our shores during the second week of October.

This international regatta in Bermuda is a unique opportunity for local sailors to compete against the best Optimist sailors in the world in our own waters. It is the 6th year that Renaissance Reinsurance has sponsored this event, providing the financial support to fly the guest sailors to Bermuda at no cost to themselves and providing them with charter boats and equipment required to compete. The international youth sailors, ages 13 to 15, are selected by national Optimist associations. Once in Bermuda they are hosted by local families and gain an insight to Bermuda culture by spending a day in school with their hosts.