SSL Gold Cup kicks off in a few days
by Star Sailors League 17 May 2022 07:43 NZST
19 May 2022
Sailing has finally its own World Cup! Like football in 1930 and rugby in 1987, the SSL Gold Cup is designed to crown the best sailing nation of all!
The World's Top 56 countries, selected on their SSL Nation ranking, will battle their way through to raise the coveted and only Sailing World Cup trophy.
The SSL Gold Cup 2022 will start on May 19th with the Qualifying Series in Grandson, Lake Neuchatel (Switzerland). All teams ranked from Top 25 to 56 in the January 2022 SSL Nations ranking will meet in eight groups of four teams each. There will be 5 stages of Qualifying Series running from May 19th to July 17th.
After three to four days of racing, only the top two teams of each group will go through to the Final Series that will take place from October 28th to November 20th, 2022, to defend their national colors.
The Final Series venue will be officially announced on May 24th.
SSL Gold Cup concept: equality, fairness and passion
The SSL Gold Cup is raced on the exact same boat: the SSL47. 11 sailors on each national team, including women and men, will be selected through their national SSL ranking but also their Captain's choice, with no financial nor technological barriers. All athletes come from Olympic classes, Match-Racing or the America's Cup. All nations, from Sailing leading countries like Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand or USA will race at the same level as the small ones such as Guatemala, Slovenia, Tahiti or Estonia.
Passion for sport and sailing will unite all these teams with their public, who will be able to enjoy Live broadcasting of the races on Youtube and Facebook.
Mateusz Kusznierewicz
SSL Gold Cup Event Director
"Finally, we will know which is the best Sailing Nation in the World! And the SSL Gold Cup will answer that question. The Star Sailors League, all sailors and athletes involved in our sport want to promote our sport. We believe the SSL Gold Cup will be one of the best events to achieve that. The SSL Gold Cup will be easy to understand like other popular sports like Football which is our main example to succeed in doing that. We believe the public who will follow the Qualifying Series and all the Final Series rounds, will see the similarities that make the SSL Gold Cup and Sailing as easy as football to understand."
"We expect to see which country will qualify to the FS to meet up with Top 26 teams. It will also see how these teams will sail. But how can they improve for the FS. They will also want to see how the format of SSL Gold Cup. Many will probably realize they seriously need to get prepared for the Final Series in October and November."
Paul Hutton-Ashkenny
SSL Gold Cup Race Director
"We are humbled and excited in equal measure. It's been years of planning, countless thousands of man-hours and here we are! We are one week away of bringing alive the extraordinary vision that somebody have work for. The first round of the Qualifying Series of SSL Gold Cup that has a nice rhythm. We are tremendously excited."
"I think we should expect some surprises. We have eight national teams who will be fighting hard to advance into final series of the SSL Gold Cup in November. And no team will be getting an easy ride. Any preconceived ideas national fans might have about which team will prevail, will be best left in the dockside. There are going to be some hard battles out there on the water. Every team is here with a chance."
goldcup.starsailors.com
Qualifying Series Round 1 is ON!
Two groups of four teams will open the SSL Gold Cup racing in two different fleets.
Racing will start on May 19th until May 22nd, the first warning signal will be at 11am every day. The teams will have to be in Grandson a couple of days early to weigh-in and register and will be available for media purposes. A press conference will take place during racing on Saturday, May 21st.