Abu Dhabi: The chief of the Volvo Ocean Racing — an event in which teams sail over 39,000 nautical miles over a nine-month period and is currently in port here on the Breakwater area of the Corniche — has hailed Abu Dhabi's vision and confirmed that renewal talks for next season were on.
Knut Frostad, a two-time Olympian from Norway and an experienced Volvo Ocean Race sailor, said Abu Dhabi had shown a clear vision after winning the rights to be one of the ports of the race, with nearly 80 cities bidding for the same.
In an exclusive interview with Gulf News, the Volvo Ocean Race chief executive said that 10 ports and 10 boats would be the ideal target for the race, which has now chartered new territories in Asia and the Middle East.
Following are excerpts from the interview:
Gulf News: Now that the boats have reached Abu Dhabi, what is your first impression?
Knut Frostad: It's fantastic to see drawings become reality. It is not only looking fantastic, but it also has a really strong Abu Dhabi flavour and spirit. You can feel that when you are here. That is very important to us, because we want all the supporters to have local taste.
Do you have any long-term contract with Abu Dhabi to be a port city?
Abu Dhabi has a clear vision that they are sharing with us. The city is beautiful, and many things are happening here, but most important is the vision. We have a renewal option for the next race, so we are talking long-term at the moment. That was the plan we had from the beginning.
In the last race, an Asian port was a stop-over. This year it is here in a Middle Eastern port. What is the strategy?
In the future we will continue to race around the world. We will always race from the West to the East, going around the world this way. At the moment, we have a clear long-term strategy of going to the Middle East and Asia, and continuing to do that; last year we were in Asia for the first time, and this time in the Middle East for the first time.
Do you have any ideal figure as far as the number of ports are concerned?
There is a limit to how many ports we can have. We are ten ports now, we were 11 in the last race. We are looking at somewhere between 8 and 10 ports, we don't want many more ports. But there is a big competition to be in the race. In the last event, we had 80 cities in the bidding process. So, there is a big interest to host the event which is fantastic, and we are happy that most of the cities have waterfronts.
What has been the experience of stopping over in Asia and the Middle East?
In the last race, we went to India for the first time, and Singapore and China. This year we are in China and Abu Dhabi. The interest we have from Asia is very strong. China also has its own team in the race and has a long-term vision with that. Clearly for us, even regardless of the economic situation in Europe, it is important for us to expand the sport, and coming to the Middle East and Asia is great for us.
And the great thing for us is that Abu Dhabi and other Middle Eastern countries have strong sailing traditions. It is not so well known in Europe. For example, here in Abu Dhabi wooden dhow racing is very strong and people understand the sport. So, it is easier for us to go to a new place where people understand it.
What about the number of boats in the race?
Now we have six boats in the race, and we would like it to be between six to ten. The economic climate in Europe has had an impact on the number of teams right now.
But to manage more than ten teams will be very difficult.
How about the popularity of the Volvo Ocean Racing as a sport?
Last time, we had a cumulative audience of 1.2 billion. The race was televised live and we had 70 broadcasters.
So it is on par with many other global sporting events. We had a lot of media coming to Abu Dhabi. We had 800 journalists attending the first two ports. So the going has been good.
