London, England: With a continued emphasis on protecting the health and safety of its national teams, global staff, partners and event communities, SailGP has determined that its racing must remain suspended for the remainder of 2020. Consequently, SailGP Season 2 events will be rescheduled for 2021.

Two of the four impacted events have new dates for 2021 – San Francisco on April 17-18 and New York on June 4-5. SailGP also intends to return to the U.K. and Denmark during the rescheduled Season 2, replacing racing previously planned for August 14-15 and September 11-12 of this year.

Season 2 is set to be expanded from five to a minimum of seven events during the year-long period beginning in April 2021, spanning to the early months of 2022. Results from 2020 Sydney SailGP – the first and only completed event of the year – will be null and void.

Two months ago in Sydney, teams representing Australia, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Japan, Spain and the United States took to the water for what was anticipated to be the first of five events in 2020. There, four-time Olympic gold medalist Sir Ben Ainslie led the British entry to victory in his SailGP debut, overcoming the local favorite and defending season champion Tom Slingsby and his Aussie crew.

In a bid to protect the organization throughout this unpredictable period, Russell Coutts has temporarily forfeited his salary in its entirety, while remaining employees have voluntarily taken salary reductions effective through the end of the year. The overall workforce has been tapered proportional to the current modified requirements, while the contracted athletes are being compensated for more than 50 percent of the planned season activity.

The rescheduled Season 2 events will continue to be showcased around the world via partnerships with top-tier broadcasters in more than 100 territories, including in each team market: SKY Sports (U.K./Ireland), CBS Sports (U.S.), Fox Sports (Australia), Canal+ Sport (France), TVE and TV3 (Spain), TV 2 Sport (Denmark), and DAZN (Japan).