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The Official
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www.sailing.org |
Twenty three year old Robertson is the fresh face on the rise in the international match racing circuit and has decided to select his crew from rival dinghy sailors whom he has raced against since he was just 10 years old. In an interview with the Tour after winning the Korea Match Cup Qualifier, Robertson who trains on home waters in New Zealand against rival Laurie Jury said, "they are a great group of guys and we have fun together".
Robertson went perfectly through the initial Round Robin in South Korea with a solid 10 wins out of 11 races, Olli Pekka Lumijärvi from Finland was the only competitor to beat him in one match. Robertson went on to be top on the leader board for the Korea Match Cup Qualifier with his WAKA Racing Team and puts his success down to 'great team work'.
The main focus for Robertson, who has developed his racing skills through Optimist and 420 class events, will be match racing for the next three years, Robertson ran through his 2010 plans. "We will compete in all the Grade One events we can and hope to race in 6 Tour events during 2010".
Currently Robertson has won an entry to compete at Korea Match Cup and the Argo Group Gold Cup so he has another four events he must qualify for to meet his 2010 aim. The team will also be spending quality time in the gym this year to increase their overall body weight. This is essential when competing on the larger match race yachts.
To make sure he experiences the top level ISAF World Match Racing Tour competition before Korea Match Cup in June, Robertson has decided to crew for Ian Ainslie (RSA) Team Proximo at Match Race Germany. Robertson will be a competitor to his core WAKA Racing crew in Langenargen where the remaining four members will be competing with match race legend Magnus Holmberg (SWE) Victory Challenge. This will be a prized learning week with Holmberg, the crew will be learning from a double winner of the ISAF World Match Racing Tour and a helm who was previously ranked number one in the world at match racing.
Magnus is known as one of the most competitive sailors in the match racing scene so the crews will be pushed to their racing limits. They will all share common ground with early years spent in dinghy classes, Holmberg then went on to represent Sweden three times in the Olympic Games as well as being involved in two America's Cup campaigns. It will be a testing situation for Robertson in Germany, he has a huge insight into his crew's minds and can use this to his competitive advantage if there is close racing produced against Ainslie and Holmberg.
After the prize giving at Gyeonggi, Dong Young Kim, Event Promoter of the Korea Match Cup explained the importance of this qualifier event to select the wild card entries for the main World Match Racing Tour event, "the Korea Match Cup Qualifier provides an excellent competition where the winner not only achieves regatta victory but is also signed to enter the highest elite level event racing the World Match Racing Tour Card Holders. This is a real accolade for the upcoming star to reach in the match racing world".