PETER HOLMBERG RISES TO NUMBER FOUR
ON THE WORLD MATCH RACE RANKINGS LIST
Talent and Hard Work Pays Off for Virgin Island Natives
October 21, 1997

Peter Holmberg of the U.S. Virgin Islands has achieved the number 4 position on the Omega World Match Race Sailing Ranking List issued yesterday by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) in England. Holmberg's ranking, the highest he has received since his debut on the list in 1991, reflects the 36-year-old's considerable success on the international match racing circuit over the past three years.

The Omega Rankings measure the performances of more than twelve hundred world-class match racing skippers who represent most countries around the globe. Hundreds of international match race sailing competitions are considered, each given a grading based on certain criteria established by the ISAF. Grade 1 regattas are the highest grading and most competitive, featuring a high percentage of the top ranked skippers. Holmberg's rise in the rankings is indicative of his concentration on Grade 1 events. Over the past three years, the Virgin Islander has raced in 25 regattas of which 17 were Grade 1 events.

Match race sailing, in which only two boats race each other at a time, is the format used in the sport's most prestigious and best known regatta, the America's Cup. The international match racing circuit is known as a training ground for America's Cup sailors as teams hone their skills and perfect the specialized strategies and tactics unique to this discipline. Of the top ten skippers on the current Rankings List, seven are affiliated with America's Cup teams training for sailing's next "Super Bowl" to be held in New Zealand in the year 2000.

One of those seven is Holmberg, who organized and leads the Virgin Islands America's Cup Challenge. The initial announcement of this challenge for sport's oldest trophy surprised the sailing world. More recently, the tiny country's progress in the race for sponsorship dollars and its success in building first-class design, technology, and sailing teams has astounded veteran America's Cup observers.

Holmberg's new ranking is all the more impressive considering the amount of time he must devote to organizational, administrative, and fund-raising tasks for his America's Cup challenge. Yet his performances on the race course have never been better. After a relatively slow start in 1997 with a 6th at the Congressional Cup in California and a 4th at the Royal Lymington Cup in England, Holmberg hit his stride with victories in June and August at Italy's Trofeo Challenge Trombini and the Alandia Match Race in Finland. In September he was the runner up in New York's CIGNA Knickerbocker Cup after defeating Australia's Peter Gilmour, newly ranked number one in the world in the latest Rankings. Earlier this month he finished third at Bermuda's Gold Cup, behind Gilmour and then-ranked number one Russell Coutts of New Zealand.

It is Coutts and Gilmour who have dominated the top spot on the Omega World Match Race Rankings List for the past five years. Their success, and that of the majority of other top ten skippers, is due to a number of factors absent in Holmberg's climb up the Rankings. Coutts, ranked number one longer than any other skipper and the winning helmsman of the 1995 America's Cup, is from a nation that reveres the sport of sailing, enthusiastically supports its competitors with generous funding, and offers top-notch competition at all levels of sailboat racing. Gilmour, who leads Japan's America's Cup challenge, has likewise experienced similar conditions and support as he's made his way through the ranks and up the Rankings.

While Holmberg's homeland is world renowned for its watersports and the prevalent tradewinds offer near perfect conditions for sailors, the competitive infrastructure found Down Under and throughout Europe is missing. Nor has Holmberg had the corporate or government funding enjoyed by many of the sport's elite. Holmberg has had to rely on talent and hard work to make his way to number 4. And while this blue collar ethic may seem something of an oddity in a sport too often symbolized by tony yacht clubs and expensive blue blazers, the Virgin Islander's accomplishments have not gone unnoticed by his countrymen and women. In a poll taken last year by the Daily News of St. Thomas, Holmberg was the second most recognizable Virgin Islander athlete.

Number one in that poll was basketball player and new multi-millionaire Tim Duncan, a native of St. Croix. The former Wake Forest superstar was the number one pick in the most recent NBA draft and already his exploits in pre-season professional hoops for the San Antonio Spurs has court followers extolling his virtues. Whereas such notoriety of someone playing as popular and well-publicized a sport as basketball is not surprising, the recognition of Holmberg's achievements in a sport admittedly a great deal less lucrative and not exactly avidly followed by most fans is gratifying to the skipper.

"I'd like to think that poll is a positive indication of support throughout the Virgin Islands for what we're trying to do with our America's Cup challenge. People throughout this territory know what we have to offer the sport of sailing and I think they share our vision of world class competitions staged throughout the islands. When I first went on the match racing circuit there was a lot of skepticism about how well someone from the Virgin Islands could do against the likes of the 'big boys'. When we first announced our America's Cup challenge, a lot of the same doubts were raised again. But now that a Virgin Islander has made it to number 4 in the world and our Cup challenge has proven it's for real, most of those doubts have turned to cheers."

Holmberg will have a chance to show the world just how good a venue the Virgin Islands is for a major sailing regatta when the St. Thomas Yacht Club hosts the Marriott Frenchman's Reef International Match Race from December 3 to 7. The Grade 1 event, to be raced in Charlotte Amalie Harbor, is the only match race in the world to include only America's Cup teams. It is also the first major match racing regatta to be held in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Contact: Paul Larsen, Omega Rankings, 203-975-5255
Steve Morton, V.I. America's Cup Challenge, 340-774-9090
Arlene R. Martel, V.I. America's Cup Challenge Media, 340-776-0921