World Cup leading Finn sailor Ed Wright is hopeful of a first ever World Championship title when racing at the Finn Gold Cup gets underway in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Monday (6 July).
The 31-year-old, who missed out on selection to the Beijing Olympics at the hands of Ben Ainslie, has hit consistent form this season and already has an unassailable lead in the ISAF Sailing World Cup standings, with the seventh and final leg – the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta at Weymouth and Portland – still to run this September.
In the four Gold Cups he’s contested since switching to the heavyweight Finn class in 2005, the closest Wright has come to claiming the coveted title was in 2006 when he claimed bronze, and was the year in which he also won the European crown.
But with two golds and two silvers already under his belt from four ISAF Sailing World Cup stages this year, he’s hoping his form will continue throughout the six day event at Vallensbæk Sailing Club, and that there will be another British name to add to the list of Finn Gold Cup winners alongside Ben Ainslie’s historic five entries.
“I have won most other events on the calendar, but the Gold Cup is one that has evaded me for a while now,” Wright said.
“This year I am really hoping that I can put a consistent series together and I might be able to win it.”
Wright’s Skandia Team GBR stablemates – most notably Giles Scott – will be among his rivals of the 98 sailors due to compete at the Gold Cup. The 22-year-old Scott claimed the Finn Junior world title in 2008 and is proving his mettle among the big players on the World Cup circuit this year. He’s currently fifth in the World Cup standings having claimed gold at the Palma leg in April and silver at the Delta Lloyd Regatta at the end of May.
Andrew Mills, bronze medallist at the Palma World Cup event, and Mark Andrews complete the Skandia Team GBR line-up at this 30-nation regatta.
Meanwhile, Olympic Star champion Andrew Simpson will be hopeful that he and Iain Percy make the podium at the Star European Championship which get underway in Kiel, Germany, tomorrow (Monday 6 July).
Simpson missed out on collecting the bronze the pair earned at the Kiel World Cup event – their first back in the Star since Beijing – two weeks ago when he had to leave early to collect his MBE at Buckingham Palace.
Percy and Simpson will be joined at the 109-boat Star Europeans by fellow Skandia Team GBR Star sailors John Gimson and Ed Greig, who won silver at the French Olympic Sailing Week – the fourth leg of the ISAF Sailing World Cup - in Hyeres in April.
Racing at both the Finn Gold Cup and the Star Europeans gets underway on Monday 6 July and concludes on Saturday 11 July.
For all the latest news on Skandia Team GBR’s sailors in action around the world visit www.skandiateamgbr.com
Photograph: Ed Wright in action. Credit Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR