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ANOTHER international sporting competition could be coming to Bahrain in the shape of the International Sailing Federation's World Match Racing Tour.
Match Racing is an exciting event in which two competitors or teams go head-to-head sailing at great speed and vying to be the first to complete the course.
The organising venue supplies the boats which are all the same giving each team an equal chance so that the race is won on pure seamanship and teams are eliminated via a round robin system.
Though there are regattas held all over the world, Bahrain is the only country in the GCC to hold this type of competition and it looks as if the kingdom could be on track to join the nine existing venues which hold the World Match Race Tour - the Grand Prix of sailing.
The likelihood was raised during the visit to the island of current World Match Race Tour champion skipper Ian Williams of Bahrain Team Pindar - a British based team which carries the Bahrain name as a gift from team boss Andrew Pindar and whose Vendee Globe solo round-the-world racing yacht is named the King Hamad.
Ian attended the opening day of the Kingdom Match Race, a three-day event held at Bahrain Sailing Club, bringing with him the trophy he won as skipper of the world beating team at October's World Match Race Final.
And he confirmed that he had been using his first trip to the island to scout out venues for possibly staging a leg of the tour here in the Gulf.
He said: "The sailing conditions here are good and I'll be seeing a number of locations around the island where it would be possible to stage a major sailing event.
"The waters off the Bahrain Sailing Club are very good but in order for it to be a World Match Race venue there would have to be more provision for spectators as this kind of event is all about encouraging people to come along and watch and get involved."
Others at the club said bringing such a major event to Bahrain is certainly something the sailing community is keen to encourage.
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Ian Williams joined the nine teams who came to Bahrain to take part in the weekend's Kingdom Match Race being pictured with many of them and the cup before racing got underway on the second day.
The Bahrain national team, skippered by Ibrahim Abdulla, came out on top among the GCC countries taking part and national coach Qassim Benjamia was delighted with their performance.
He said: "The Bahrain team were not in the top few but we were still keen to sail in a round robin race for the lower placings as this is the ideal time to take advantage of the European and other world teams who have travelled to the event to give ourselves practice against high class opponents.
"Some of the teams who were not highly placed decided to visit the city but I'm pleased that my team wanted to get out there and keep practising and learning."
A total of nine teams took part in the event - Russia A, Russia B, Pakistan, Switzerland, Poland, the UAE Navy, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.
Each competed in the first round which featured round robin matches, so each team sails against all the others, and the top four teams went through to the semi-final knockout stages.
Team Russia A, skippered by world 28th ranked Sergey Musikhin, beat tough opposition from Pakistan to take the overall race championship, bettering the third place they managed last year.
Saying they would be back next year Musikhin paid tribute to the regatta's impressive organisation and to the talents of the Pakistani team, whose form brought the final unexpectedly close.
He said: "It was a very good race, Pakistan managed to take an early lead and gave us a good challenge but we eventually managed to overtake them and hold onto the lead until the end.
"Bahrain is our first choice at this time of year and we'll definitely be coming back next year."
Third place was taken by Russia B who recorded a 3-1 win over Switzerland and the Bahrain team came in sixth over all.
The event was held under the patronage of Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa and organised by the sailing club with the Bahrain Maritime Sports Association whose president Shaikh Khalifa bin Abdullah Al Khalifa presided over the prize giving ceremony and paid tributes to all the competitors saying the event, which is now in its seventh year, is going from strength to strength and the quality of the sailing is improving with each year.
Coach Qassim agreed, adding: "Each year it gets better and better, last year we had just four boats, this year we had an extra four new boats so there were eight racing in total.
"I've been getting really good feedback from the teams involved and the quality of the sailing is improving all the time and our experience is also increasing which is a good thing.
"We are looking for experience and the chance to perform against other quality teams and this regatta gives us that opportunity."
Bahrain's team is next expecting to be in action at the Monsoon Regatta in India in January and there will be another match race event at the Bahrain Sailing Club next June.
