Bertrand Pacé will be representing BMW ORACLE Racing at the Portugal Match Cup in Cascais, the first event of this season’s Swedish Match Tour.

The 42-year-old Frenchman, who finished the Match Race season 2003/04 in fifth place overall, will act as the team’s helmsman. Pacé is competing against some of the world’s best sailing professionals such as Peter Gilmour, last season’s winner of the tour.

For the first time ever, the Swedish Match Tour is stopping over in Portugal and with prize money amounting to 150,000 Euros, the Portugal Match Cup offers the biggest purse of the Tour events this season.

Bertrand Pacé, Match Race world champion in 1994 and winner of the Swedish Match Tour in 2000, competes for BMW ORACLE Racing for the first time in Cascais.

“It is a tremendous challenge for me to be the helmsman of BMW ORACLE Racing for the first time at the very beginning of the season,” Pace said. “It is a good opportunity to compete against the world’s best Match Racing sailors, in order to prepare at the highest level for the Louis Vuitton Acts in Marseille and Valencia in autumn of this year.”

After his Swedish Match Tour victory at the ACI HTmobile Cup in Croatia at the end of May, Pacé is now striving to succeed at the Portugal Match Cup, taking place from July 26th to 31st on the new Swedish Match 40 yachts constructed specifically for the tour.