Ed Baird (USA) continues to dominate the ISAF Open Match Race Rankings and has now retained the top spot for eight months since winning his second consecutive ISAF Match Racing World Championship in Russia back in July.

Victory in last week’s ISAF Grade 1 Marseille International Match Race has extended his lead over Australian Peter Gilmour by 151 points. Neither Gilmour nor his fellow countryman, James Spithill have made any move in the latest rankings. As a result fourth placed Frenchman Mathieu Richard has closed the gap on them thanks to his second place in Marseille.

24 sailors have joined the rankings increasing the number of ranked
sailors to 1,342.

Two events have counted toward this release of the ISAF World Match Race Rankings for the women’s teams. Both are ISAF Grade 3 events and they are the JPMorgan Fleming Women’s Winter Challenge which took place in Sunbury, Great Britain and the Harken Women’s International Match Racing Regatta in Sydney, Australia.

Whilst there is no change to the top ten, there are however two new entries to the top 20, Australians Katie Spithill and Nicky Souter enter at 17 and 19 respectively.

There are two new entries to the women’s list which now totals 155
skippers from 20 nations.

The next release of the ISAF World Match Race Rankings will take place on 4 May 2005.

Top ten Match Racing - Open
1. Ed Baird, USA
2. Peter Gilmour, AUS
3. James Spithill, AUS
4. Mathieu Richard, FRA
5. Karol Jablonski, POL
6. Ian Williams, GBR
7. Philippe Presti, FRA
8. Russell Coutts, NZL
9. Staffan Lindberg, FIN
10. Lars Nordbjerg, DEN

Top ten Match Racing - Women
1. Marie Bjorling, SWE
2. Claire Leroy, FRA
3. Lotte Meldgaared Pedersen, DEN
4. Jenny Axhede, SWE
5. Nina Braestrup, DEN
6. Malin Kallstrom, SWE
7. Christelle Philippe, FRA
8. Klaartje Zuiderbaan, NED
9. Christine Briand, FRA
10. Betsy Alison, USA

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