MARSTRAND, Sweden (July 5, 2026) — American match racing star Chris Poole and his Riptide Racing team reclaimed the GKSS Match Cup Sweden title on Saturday, while France’s Pauline Courtois/ Match in Pink successfully defended the Nordea Women’s Trophy, bringing a spectacular week of world-class match racing to a thrilling conclusion in Marstrand.
Racing in a fresh 16-knot westerly breeze, the championship finals showcased the very best of international match racing in front of a large crowd of spectators lining Marstrand’s famous granite shoreline.
Poole and his Riptide Racing crew of Adam Minoprio, Mal Parker and Luke Payne defeated local favourite Sweden’s Oscar Engström and Liros Racing 3-1 to lift the Match Cup Sweden trophy for the second time, adding the 2026 title to the crown they first won in 2024.
The victory completed an impressive comeback campaign for the American team. After a modest opening to the regatta, Poole and team steadily gathered momentum through the knockout rounds, eliminating defending 2025 champion Denmark’s Jeppe Borch in the quarterfinals before defeating France’s breakout skipper Ange Delerce in the semifinals and Engström in the championship match.
“It has been an interesting week for us, it didn’t start as well as we expected but we fought our way through with a really good fight with Jeppe Borch in the quarterfinals and then Ange Delerce in the semi” commented Poole. “Oscar put on a tough match for us in the finals but we are delighted to win again here, and on 4 July – I’m proud to fly the Stars and Stripes with our win.”
For Engström, the runner-up finish caps the strongest performance of his career in Marstrand. The Swedish skipper thrilled home supporters throughout the week, topping the round robin standings to earn direct passage to the semifinals before defeating fellow Swede Johnie Berntsson to reach his first GKSS Match Cup Sweden final.
Earlier in the day, Berntsson secured third place by defeating France’s Ange Delerce Sailing Team 2-0 in the petit final.
Although just missing the podium, Delerce emerged as one of the revelations of the championship. Competing in Marstrand for the first time, the French skipper reached the semifinals after eliminating seven-time Match Cup Sweden champion Björn Hansen, announcing himself as one of the rising stars of the World Match Racing Tour.
Courtois Goes Back-to-Back
In the Nordea Women’s Trophy running parallel with the Match Cup, the final produced another outstanding match as Pauline Courtois and her Match in Pink crew of Maëlenn Lemaitre, Laurane Mettraux and Théa Khelif successfully defended the title they won in 2025 with a 3-1 victory over Sweden’s Martina Carlsson and Beyond Racing.
Carlsson entered the final as the standout performer of the regatta after an extraordinary unbeaten run through the round robin and semifinals, winning nine consecutive races to earn the Beyond Sailing team’s place in the title decider.
But Courtois and her long-standing team once again demonstrated why they remain one of the world’s premier match racing teams, producing a composed and tactically flawless performance to successfully defend their Marstrand crown.
“We are very happy of course to defend our title” added Courtois “We knew we were sailing against a popular local team and Martina [Carlsson] and her team have been sailing very well this week, but we were also fast today and it is great to get the win again”
The battle for third place went to another Swedish crew, with former champion Anna Östling and WINGS Sailing defeating Denmark’s Lea Richter Vogelius and WOW Racing 2-0.
As the podium teams took to the stage in front of a packed spectator crowd, the prizegiving ceremony brought a close to another successful GKSS Match Cup Sweden and Nordea Women’s Trophy, this year celebrating its 32nd edition.
The World Match Racing Tour now moves to Porninchet in France at the end of the month followed by the US Grand Slam events in Chicago, Detroit and New York. The Tour then returns to Europe in September for events in Dublin and Poland, before the Bermuda Gold Cup championship event in October and the brand new WMRT Final in AMAALA, Saudi Arabia from 10-14 November.
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Founded in 2000, the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) promotes the sport of match racing around the world and is the longest running global professional series in the sport of sailing. The WMRT is awarded ‘Special Event’ status by the sport’s world governing body –World Sailing – and the winner of the WMRT each year is crowned World Sailing Match Racing World Champion. Since 2000, the World Match Racing Tour and its events have awarded over USD24million in prize money to sailors which has helped to contribute to the career pathway of many of today’s professional sailors. www.wmrt.com
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The Women’s World Match Racing Tour was launched in 2022 to continue the hugely successful legacy of the WIM Series(Women’s International Match Racing Series) providing a global match racing series for female sailors. The name of the series was re-launched as theWomen’s World Match Racing Tour with its continued mission to expand and strengthen global match racing and promote opportunities for competitive women’s sailing at every level. The Women’s World Match Racing Tour is the world’s first and only professional sailing series for women providing a valuable pathway for aspiring female world champions in the sport of sailing. See womenswmrt.com