America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand is on the match point
America's CupBreaking newsEnglishIn evidenzaVela 26 Giugno 2017 Zerogradinord 0
Hamilton – It is now Match point Emirates Team New Zealand.
Day four of the America’s Cup Match, presented by Louis Vuitton, belonged firmly to Peter Burling and the New Zealand team who comfortably won the two scheduled races of the day, races seven and eight of the final stage of the 35th America’s Cup.
Having won race six on Saturday, Oracle Team USA went into the second Sunday of the America’s Cup Match, presented by Louis Vuitton, looking to gain more ground on their Kiwi rivals, but the New Zealand juggernaut had found its pace again and was unbeatable in similar weather conditions to day three, Saturday 24th June.
The America’s Cup Match, presented by Louis Vuitton leaderboard now stands at 6-1 to Emirates Team New Zealand who need only one more race to take the ‘Auld Mug’ back to their home country.
“We were absolutely delighted with how the day went,” said Peter Burling after claiming back-to-back victories to take his team to the verge of their first America’s Cup success since 2000. “We were disappointed to give away a race yesterday but we certainly made up for it today. We’ve got a fantastic team and you can see that out on the water. We’ve all got the same understanding of what we want to achieve and we are all on the same page. Despite the lead we won’t get ahead of ourselves because we still know we have a job to do and it’s still an incredibly tough ask. A lot has been said about what happened four years ago but I love the pressure. If you want to come all the way to Bermuda and win the America’s Cup then you have to deal with immense pressure. As a group we feel the pressure is bringing the best out of us and I think we’ve more than answered those questions.”
For Oracle Team USA, this is familiar ground, and nobody would write off the Defenders who so memorably staged one of, if not the, greatest comebacks in sport when they pulled back from an 8-1 deficit to win the 2013 America’s Cup 9-8 against the same rivals.
“They [Emirates Team New Zealand] sailed better than us today and made a lot fewer mistakes,” conceded Jimmy Spithill on what was a disappointing day for Oracle Team USA
“They deserved to win both of the races because we clearly made far too many mistakes out there. We’re in a tough situation now and all we can really do is take this one race at a time. The plan certainly wasn’t to be in this position again, I can assure you of that, but we are here now so it is up to all of us to respond and react. You wouldn’t have been surprised to see a bit of a bad reaction out there today but the boys kept fighting and that’s great. Potentially, in a situation like this you could see a team split apart, but when we got ashore everyone pulled together because we know this isn’t over. I still think we can win races with this boat. We’ve proven we can races against these guys if we sail well but if we make too many mistakes like we did today then we won’t win races.”
Having made changes to their boat since the opening weekend of the America’s Cup Match, presented by Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Spithill was asked if there might also be changes to personnel on the Oracle Team USA boat ahead of day five, to which he replied, “Anything is on the table. Every single team member in Oracle Team USA will do whatever they can to help the team win. That includes me. If the team feel they have a better chance of winning with me on the wheel, I’ll be on the wheel, if we feel we have a better chance with me off the wheel, no problem. Our attitude has always been you put the team before yourself. Once again we will go away and review everything and tomorrow we will put out the boat, the configuration and the team we feel will give us the best possible chance to win some races. We don’t need to think too much about the end result, all we need to focus on is winning one race, and one race at a time. We have to learn from our mistakes and come out fighting stronger tomorrow, that’s it, that’s all we will be thinking about.”
Racing is scheduled to resume at 2.00pm on Monday 26th June with races nine and ten in the America’s Cup Match, presented by Louis Vuitton, taking place on Bermuda’s Great Sound.
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