In good hands?
Most people who know the Volvo Race are optimistic that the takeover of the event by two-time winners Atlant Ocean Racing offers the best possible chance of restoring the race to its once unrivalled status
In November 2017 Swedes Richard Brisius and Johan Salén were named president and co-president of the current edition of the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), after Extreme Sailing entrepreneur Mark Turner resigned as CEO having failed to maintain support for his plans for a Volvo funded Super Imoca 60 one-design. Then in early May came the announce-
ment that Atlant Ocean Racing Spain, a new Brisius/Salén event vehicle, is taking over the VOR from Volvo Group and Volvo Cars, the co-owners of the event for the past 20 years. There is broad agreement among the
current skippers that the new race owners are highly qualified, with 30 years of involvement with the race as both sailors and race-winning team managers. Brisius
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sailed as bowman and helmsman on Gatorade in 1989, while Salén was helms- man on The Card in the same race. In 1993/94 Salén worked with Roger
Nilsson managing the Intrum Justitia project, while Brisius was sailing on Brooks- field. Then in 1997/98 the two sailors joined forces and engineered an EF Lan- guage victory under skipper Paul Cayard. In the following edition in 2001/02 Assa
Abloy took second place overall under their stewardship and they scored their second race win as managers with the Eric- sson 4 campaign in 2008/09. In the last edition of the VOR Brisius and Salén man- aged the well-funded women’s Team SCA. Over the past two decades the pair have
brought significantly more sponsorship money into the race than any other person or entity, so if anyone can bring a sustain- able business model to this event then Richard Brisius and Johan Salén have to be the most likely candidates. Seahorse: Volvo have been involved with the race for a long time now, what have been the key changes over that period? Richard Brisius: Since Volvo bought the race the group has split into two distinct companies. One is Volvo Cars, the other is
the Volvo Group which builds trucks and buses plus equipment for the construction and marine industries. The two companies have different products, very different technologies and different customers. What is shared is a brand. The needs of the companies have
evolved to be quite different as well. Volvo Cars see the value and the power of a global event. Global events like this race are rare and they see that, as a global com- pany, it is better to work with global activ- ities. Meanwhile, Volvo Group is becom- ing more decentralised with each market being given more autonomy, and is there- fore less well-placed for a single commit- ment to an international event. Volvo Cars will continue with the race and Volvo Group may also continue – but in what capacity or on what scale we don’t know. SH: So if they are continuing, why did they sell? RB:What they told me is that new people coming into the companies are asking, ‘Why do we own a sports event? That’s not our core expertise.’ That I understand, because the success of this sports event depends on a lot of detail and detail deci- sions. They are great people, but if this is
SALLY COLLISON
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