Plans for the 2003/2004 Swedish Match Tour are well underway with the first of the seven-event series having already taken place.

The Danish Open 2003 on 13-17 August was the first event in the series, with Sweden’s Magnus Holmberg of Team Stora Enso continuing his dominance by winning for the third time in four years.

Bermuda is the next stop in the series with racing for the newly-sponsored Investors Guaranty Presentation of the King Edward VII Gold Cup scheduled from October 18 -26. This event is to be raced in International One-Designs (IODs) using an unseeded, 16-team knockout format in addition to the eight seeded skippers and, for the second time, a women’s competition, bringing the total number of teams to 32.

After a six-month gap the series will resume its schedule in 2004 with the Congressional Cup in Long Beach, California from 19-24 April. This will be followed by the start of the European leg in May with the Toscana Elba Cup – Trofeo Locman on the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy where more than US$200,000 prize money is up for grabs.

The ACI HTmobile Cup, from May 24-29 in Split, Croatia is the next on the list, with the sixth event – Match Race Germany – scheduled for 8-13 June.

The tour concludes with the Swedish Match Tour finale, the Swedish Match Cup, in Marstrand, Sweden from 5-11 July with the annual Swedish Match Tour Rankings race coming to a head.

Swedish Match Tour 2003/2004 Schedule

Danish Open 2003 – Skovshoved, Denmark August 13-18, 2003

Investors Guaranty King Edward VII Cup – Hamilton, Bermuda October 18-26, 2003

Congressional Cup – Long Beach, CA, USA April 19-24, 2004

Toscana Elba Cup – Trofeo Locman Elba, Italy May 2004

ACI HT Cronet Cup – Split, Croatia May 24-29, 2004

Match Race Germany – Langenargen, Germany June 8-13, 2004

Swedish Match Cup – Marstrand, Sweden July 5-11, 2004

Leader after first event

1 Magnus Holmberg 25

2 Jesper Bank 20

3 Peter Gilmour 15

4 Jesper Radich 12

5 Kelvin Harrap 10

6 Luc Pillot 8

7 Karol Jablonski 6

8 Andy Beadsworth 4