The SSL Gold Cup is designed to crown the best sailing nation of all. The world’s top 56 countries, selected on their SSL Nation ranking, will battle their way through to raise the coveted and only Sailing World Cup trophy.
The SSL Gold Cup 2022 will start on 19 May with the Qualifying Series in Grandson, Lake Neuchatel (Switzerland). All teams ranked from Top 25 to 56 in the January 2022 SSL Nations ranking will meet in eight groups of four teams each. There will be 5 stages of Qualifying Series running from 19 May – 17 July.
After three to four days of racing only the top two teams of each group will go through to the Final Series that will take place from 28 October – 20 November.
The SSL Gold Cup is raced on the same boat: the SSL47. 11 sailors on each national team, women and men, will be selected through their national SSL ranking but also their captain’s choice. All athletes come from Olympic classes, Match-Racing or the America’s Cup. All nations, from leading countries like Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand or USA, will race at the same level as the small ones such as Guatemala, Slovenia, Tahiti or Estonia.
Mateusz Kusznierewicz, SSL Gold Cup Event Director, said: “Finally, we will know which is the best Sailing Nation in the World! And the SSL Gold Cup will answer that question. The Star Sailors League, all sailors and athletes involved in our sport want to promote our sport. We believe the SSL Gold Cup will be one of the best events to achieve that. The SSL Gold Cup will be easy to understand like other popular sports like Football which is our main example to succeed in doing that. We believe the public who will follow the Qualifying Series and all the Final Series rounds, will see the similarities that make the SSL Gold Cup and Sailing as easy as football to understand.”
