After the elimination of 14 national teams, the third round (1/8 Finals) of the 2023 SSL Gold Cup had 16 more squads competing in four-boat fleets on November 21-25 in the Canary Islands. The goal? Be one of the eight teams to advance to the next round.
Racing in the SSL47 One-Designs, experience from the early rounds had been an advantage, and four of the lowest seeded teams from the opening stage – Chile, Malaysia, Lithuania, and Portugal – have advanced again.
Of the eight teams that were preseeded for the 1/8 Finals, only Brazil, France, and Switzerland survived. Getting eliminated were Argentina, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and USA. Hungary, which was preseeded for the 1/16 Finals, also advance to complete the eight national teams to move on.
The top ranked eight teams – Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Italy and Spain – will now enter the competition, and it will again be a test of their perceived skill versus the experience accrued by teams in the earlier rounds. The 1/4 Finals will be held November 27-December 1.
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Forty teams from five continents are competing in groups of four until the final. Another 16 countries were previously knocked out of the competition in the qualifying series that took place between May and July 2022 at Lake Neuchatel (Grandson, Switzerland), and 24 of the 40 that reach the finals do so directly by their position in the overall ranking of the SSL. The competition program on November 10-December 3 foresees a total of 66 races.
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