Coutts brushes aside Cup critics
hamilton — New Zealand sailing great Russell Coutts dismissed criticism of this year’s America’s Cup from his home country, ahead of the final match between Team Orcale USA and the Kiwis which starts on Saturday in Bermuda.
It is a chance of revenge for the New Zealanders, after they blew an 8-1 lead to lose 9-8 to Oracle in one of sport’s greatest comebacks in 2013.
The 1984 Finn-class Olympic champion and five-time America’s Cup winner Coutts is the head organiser of the 35th edition of the world’s oldest sailing competition, which has featured a shortened format and ultrafast boats in an attempt to bring in new fans.
But New Zealand, who set up the rematch with the Americans by beating Sweden’s Artemis Racing 5-2 in the challenger final on Monday, have refused to join the other teams to discuss the future of the Cup.
Coutts expressed his delight with the new format, but acknowledged that should New Zealand win the title and hold the next staging of the event, then it could prove to be a one-off.
“We just have to wait and see what their plan is, they have not announced their plan,” he told AFP.
“I think the strength in the framework agreement with the five teams that have joined is really that they have agreed to preagree the rules before any one team wins.
“Typically in the past, the team has won, and then created the rules with a friendly challenger of record, in isolation to everyone else. So everyone else has to wait and see what those rules are. And clearly, that’s not ideal.” —