Poole repeats at 2024 Congressional Cup

Long Beach, CA (April 28, 2024) – As the opening event for the 2024 World Match Racing Tour, the 59th Congressional Cup reached its peak today as USA’s Chris Poole and his Riptide Racing team won his second consecutive Congressional Cup and Crimson Blazer.

Poole and his Riptide Racing team of Joachim Aschenbrenner, Bernardo Freitas, Mal Parker, Luke Payne, and Harry West defeated five-time Congressional Cup winner Ian Williams 3-1 in the 2024 Final.

Showing dominance early, Poole claimed the first point of the event, but with so much experience in the Catalina 37s, the finalists pushed the match racing rules and boats to their maximum.

“It’s an incredible feeling,” shared Poole. “It would be impossible without my team. We didn’t start the week the way we wanted to, but once we started sailing like we did last year, we were pretty confident it was going to be ours to win.”

Fighting five-time Congressional Cup champion Ian Williams, Poole added, “It was a really close battle. Ian is a phenomenal competitor, so we knew it was going to be a big fight. We were up to the challenge and my guys were ready to go.”

After Williams won the second match against Poole to tie the score, Poole’s team rallied to come back strong with two wins and a final score of 3-1 to be able to wear his second Crimson Blazer.

Riptide Racing’s tactician Joachim Aschenbrenner talked about the final matches. “We managed to get out even on every start and that’s what we like. We prefer to decide it on the race course, and we were able to do that in most races. It was a tricky course today. We saw the left working and the right working at times. It was challenging to pick the right side. Luckily, we got it right a couple of times.”

Switzerland’s Eric Monnin / Capvis Swiss Match Racing team started their day in the Semi-finals against Chris Poole before moving into the Petit-finals against New Zealand’s Nick Egnot-Johnson/ KNOTS Racing. Monnin proved his team deserved the spot on the podium by convincingly winning 2-0 against the Kiwi team and securing third place.

“We started with a close match against Poole,” commented Monnin. We thought we could get that race, but in the end he was just better than us, we were a bit disappointed. But, in the petit final we really stepped up and had two good races with Nick Egnot-Johnson. We played our boat-speed and crew work.”

Monnin finished third at the Congressional Cup in 2021, still their best result yet. Looking forward, they’re not done fighting for the win. “We have to come back here and go into the finals and hopefully win the Crimson Blazer,” offered Monnin.

Racing was held April 24-28, beginning with a round robin stage to advance the top teams for the knock-out matches.

Tour information – Event details – Results – Facebook

FINAL RESULTS:

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 winner of the WMRT each year is crowned World Sailing Match Racing World Champion.

Previous champions include Sir Ben Ainslie (GBR), Taylor Canfield (USA), Peter Gilmour (AUS), Magnus Holmberg (SWE), Peter Holmberg (ISV), Adam Minoprio (NZL), Torvar Mirsky (AUS), Bertrand Pace (FRA), Jesper Radich (DEN), Phil Robertson (NZL), and Ian Williams (GBR).

Since inception, the World Match Racing Tour and its events have awarded over USD23million in prize money to sailors which has helped to contribute to the career pathway of many of today’s professional sailors.

Source: LBYC