Matthieu Richard has arrived at the Monsoon Cup confident that he can silence his critics and claim his maiden ISAF Match Racing World title. The Frenchman has led the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) from the opening regatta of the season at Match Race France in April and heads into the season ending event in Malaysia with a 15th point advantage over Adam Minoprio.
The pressure has been mounting on Richard in the recent weeks after failing to make it through the qualifying stages of the last event in Bermuda, while people have also questioned the Frenchman’s decision to race in Perth last week with Richard having a poor track record of racing back to back.
Richard remains unfazed by other people’s thoughts and is confident he can stand up to the pressure and win the title saying, “We thought long and hard about going to Perth and chose to go there to purely prepare for the Monsoon Cup. Our goal was to build up to this week and get a good feeling. We wanted to practice our starts against high quality opponents and overall i'm delighted with how we sailed. It would have been nice to beat Robertson but we only lost 3-2 and it gave us some time off to relax and have a break.
“We've come here with the lead on the Tour and its great to have the number one ranking. Adam and Ben are close and with so many points on offer anything can happen. We can't afford to try and calculate where we need to finish, we need to aim to win.”
To read Richard’s thoughts on the Monsoon Cup visit http://www.wmrt.com/
Image Caption: Mathieu Richard puts a finishing touches to his preparations for the title deciding Monsoon Cup. Photo: SubZero Images/WMRT
The pressure has been mounting on Richard in the recent weeks after failing to make it through the qualifying stages of the last event in Bermuda, while people have also questioned the Frenchman’s decision to race in Perth last week with Richard having a poor track record of racing back to back.
Richard remains unfazed by other people’s thoughts and is confident he can stand up to the pressure and win the title saying, “We thought long and hard about going to Perth and chose to go there to purely prepare for the Monsoon Cup. Our goal was to build up to this week and get a good feeling. We wanted to practice our starts against high quality opponents and overall i'm delighted with how we sailed. It would have been nice to beat Robertson but we only lost 3-2 and it gave us some time off to relax and have a break.
“We've come here with the lead on the Tour and its great to have the number one ranking. Adam and Ben are close and with so many points on offer anything can happen. We can't afford to try and calculate where we need to finish, we need to aim to win.”
To read Richard’s thoughts on the Monsoon Cup visit http://www.wmrt.com/
Image Caption: Mathieu Richard puts a finishing touches to his preparations for the title deciding Monsoon Cup. Photo: SubZero Images/WMRT
