The 2008 Finn Gold Cup Regatta in Melbourne has recently began. There was a total of 85 international and Australian sailors from approximately 33 countries who have engaged in the competition. There are many participants who have taking advantage of the beautiful past two months of Australian summer to fulfilled their practice and prepare for their coming campaigns which will begin at the Black Rock Yacht Club.



Besides being a very important competition due to its results affecting the berths for this year’s Olympic Games; the event gathers big names known worldwide…among some of them are: the Finn superstar four-time world champion and two-time Olympic Gold medallist - Ben Ainslie. Also, British compatriot Ed Wright who recently reached second place at the Asia Pacific Regatta and let’s not forget the 2007 defending champion the Spaniard Rafa Trujillo as well as Australian only hope Anthony Nossiter.

For the 32-year old Trujillo the road ahead is not easy "The level of competition every year is getting higher," said Trujillo. He has informed to have dropped 4kg besides the 7kg he previously lost from his regular 105kg frame in order to compete in the light Beijing wind.

Despite the general good weather conditions during the days at Finn Cup race there are predictions of sudden changes as the wind often shifts creating big waves which could result in imminent bad races. “Not the weather I was expecting in Melbourne" declared Jonas Hoegh-Christensen (DEN), disappointed with a 15th place. Other competitors Emilios Papathanasiou (GRE) and Peter-Jan Postma lost several ranking positions due to sailing on the wrong side of the shift on the last beat. Papathanasiou is losing one place to 3rd overall.

And more recently the Briton Ainslie just won the latest race of the championship taking him to a second position overall behind New Zealander Dan Slater who is leading the scoreboard in front of Emilios Papathanasiou (GRE) and Giorgio Poggi (ITA). On the other hand, in the Junior division, Giles Scott (GBR), placed 11th overall is dominating his counter parts by a remarkable margin and he is expected to keep it up for the time being.