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Swedish Match Tour adds Newport race

Holmberg has clinched the 2001/2 tour

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The Swedish Match Tour, one of the world's premier professional sailing series, has increased its 2002/2003 schedule from eight to nine races.

The additional race is the UBS Challenge in Newport, Rhode Island from July 27 to August 4, 2003.

Swedish Match Grand Prix president Pierre Tinnerholm said: "The combination of rich history of Newport with the involvement of UBS and a $100,000 prize purse immediately positions the UBS Challenge as one of the best events in the world and it rightfully deserves to be a part of the Swedish Match Tour."

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The 2002/2003 schedule will begin on July 9 in Ravenna, Italy, then move to Rhode Island, Denmark, Bermuda, and the Steinlager Line 7 Cup in March. Event dates are still being finalised with the recognition that the New Zealand event will be coordinated around the America's Cup in February.

The Swedish Match Tour returns to the U.S. in April, Croatia in May, Germany in June, and finishes in Sweden in July 2003.

Representatives from all the challenging syndicates for the 2003 America's Cup, plus defender Team New Zealand, regularly compete in the Swedish Match Tour.

The final race in the 2001/2002 Swedish Match Tour begins on July 1.

However, Oracle Racing's Peter Holmberg and his crew have already clinched the current Swedish Match Tour championship, 40 points ahead of their nearest rival.

"We see the Swedish Match Tour as a stepping stone to the America's Cup and as critical to our overall Cup programme because these are full-on, head-to-head combats with the same opponents we'll be meeting in this October's Louis Vuitton Cup," said Holmberg.

"We make a point of going back to camp in Auckland and watching videotape and going over notes from all the matches and then debrief the entire team, let them know what we encountered at the particular event and what things we need to improve upon, so the whole team benefits from the Swedish Match Tour events."

In addition to more than $400,000 in individual event prize money, the Swedish Match Tour awards $200,000 to the top eight sailors on the tour, with the first-place skipper netting $60,000.