KIWIS PUT 2013 GHOST TO REST
America’s Cup relief for New Zealand as they beat Oracle Team USA
KIWIS yesterday greeted Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup victory with jubilation and a huge sigh of relief at finally putting the humiliation of 2013 behind them.
“Redemption! Team NZ claims the Cup: ‘We’re on top of the world’, the NZ Herald’s website trumpeted.
The race that delivered a 7-1 win in Bermuda started before dawn on a chilly Wellington morning for sailing enthusiasts packed into the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club.
Even though the New Zealanders were on match point and close to a crushing win, there was an undercurrent of anxiety as bleary-eyed patrons sipped coffee and tucked into cooked breakfasts.
“It’s never a done deal,” Will Eastman told AFP just before the race was screened on a giant TV.
After all, patrons had gathered at the same club four years previously full of confidence with New Zealand up 8-1 and needing just one more win to claim the Auld Mug.
Instead, they saw Oracle Team USA relentlessly hack away at the lead over more than week and claim a stunning 9-8 in San Francisco.
“The last Cup hurt a lot for me and for a lot of people here,” the club’s commodore Pedro Morgan told AFP about a result that had been described as the greatest choke in sporting history.
The atmosphere was tense as the New Zealanders fell behind early to Oracle, skippered by the never-say-die Australian Jimmy Spithill, nemesis of the 2013 campaign.
It gave way to muted cheering as New Zealand edged ahead, then the crowd erupted as the hitech catamaran swooped toward the finish and TV commentators declared: “There will be no fairytale comeback this time.”
Daniel Forsythe said that after the disappointment of San Francisco he only allowed himself to celebrate once New Zealand had crossed the line.
“It’s fantastic. We’ve been four years of not breathing and now we can breathe again,” he said. “It’s been a great reversal to come back after losing from 8-1.”
He credited a large part of the win to New Zealand’s Peter Burling, who at 26 became the youngest helmsman to ever lift the Cup.
“He hasn’t put a foot wrong,” Forsythe said of Burling, who is already an Olympic yachting gold medallist and sealed his status as New Zealand’s newest sporting hero.
Sports Minister Jonathan Coleman said “the whole of New Zealand is ecstatic with this stunning win” while Prime Minister Bill English hailed “an amazing job.”
“The crewmanship aboard Team NZ has been outstanding and the innovative use of pedal power to drive the hydraulics on the New Zealand boat has showcased Kiwi ingenuity to the world,” English said. AFP