Holmberg Bests Brady

Peter Holmberg validated his new No. 1 ranking in the world and on the Swedish Match Tour by winning his fourth Congressional Cup in five years Saturday, but not before Gavin Brady had him twisting in the wind.

“I sweated more in that race than in any other final,” Holmberg said after dispatching Brady, 2-1, in a fickle dying breeze. “It’s tough on the nerves.”

For the second successive year Holmberg spotted his opponent the first race of the championship finals before firing back to win the next two and another Crimson Blazer, emblematic of victory in the 38-year-old match-race sailing classic staged by the Long Beach Yacht Club. Last year it was France’s Bertrand Pace in a nautical slugfest; this time it was a war of nerves against a young but formidable two-time winner of the event.

For the first few minutes the race looked like a rout, but a sudden wind shift in Brady’s favor made it a contest to the finish.

Holmberg, who collected $6,000 of the $25,000 purse, is from the U.S. Virgin Islands, but his home these days is wherever there is match racing to be done or an America’s Cup to win. He came to town ranked No. 1 after winning the previous two events on the international Swedish Match Tour. Except for a three-race slump at the start of the second round, he and his crew from billionaire Larry Ellison’s Oracle Racing campaign resoundingly validated that status by breezing through the double round robin with 15 victories in 18 races.

Then they fought off Britain’s Andy Green in the semifinals, 2-1, before dispatching Brady by the same score. Holmberg, 40, thus joined Rod Davis as a four-time winner, but this may have been the strongest field either of them ever faced in their victories. They were two of seven competitors from America’s Cup teams who will be facing off again in New Zealand in October.

Brady, 29, is a native of New Zealand who lives in Annapolis, Md., and sails with Davis for Prada. A winner here in 1996 and ‘97, he reached the finals by winning six of his last seven races, including a 2-0 sweep of Team Dennis Conner’s Ken Read in the semifinals.

Said Holmberg of Brady: “Gavin made us work real hard. To win this one is huge.”