Alinghi puts wind in sails of Swiss press
The historic victory by Swiss sailing syndicate Alinghi in the 32nd America's Cup dominated the headlines in Swiss newspapers on Wednesday.
Alinghi’s successful defence of the Cup – and the fact that the boat represented a landlocked nation – was also cause for comment in the international press.
The French-language Tribune de Genève filled its front page with a picture of a victorious Ernesto Bertarelli, the team’s billionaire owner, hoisting the Auld Mug and a single English word, “Yes!”.
“It took exactly one second for Bertarelli to rewrite the history of the America’s Cup,” the Geneva paper said of the team that is based in the same city. “It was a second that will remain engraved in the memories of the Swiss”.
Le Temps agreed. “One second for eternity” was its front page headline. Besides its editorial, the Geneva paper ran an interview with a professor from the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, which helped in the design of the Swiss boat.
“It’s a victory for the institute as well,” said Jan-Anders Manson.
The Zurich-based Tages-Anzeiger also gave credit to the innovative contributions made by the institution. “Swiss top technology” was the headline of its editorial.
The German-language paper said the “winning yacht SUI 100 was built as its predecessor SUI 64 in the tradition of Swiss precision”.
“Alinghi has won and that comes as no surprise,” the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) said in its editorial under the headline: “The better tactics were decisive”.
Winning formula
“The winning formula was the same as that which made Alinghi’s first victory possible four years ago: team spirit, good boat design and solid management, but this time around, its success was down to the fact that it was able to master its new role as defender in a different location,” said the NZZ.
The headline on the front page of the mass-circulation newspaper Blick declared: “Now we want our own ocean!”
“New Zealand has a 7,400km coast, but us? We have to drive 300km just to get to the sea. However, we’ve again shown the world that we’re the world’s top sailing nation,” Blick added in its commentary next to maps comparing the island and landlocked countries.
In the international press, the online edition of the New Zealand Herald regretted that the Kiwis had come “Close but not close enough”. It added that the “shattered Team New Zealand crew was reflecting on what might have been after one of the most closely fought America’s Cup matches in history.”
Making waves
The Alinghi victory even made the pages of the London-based Financial Times. A large picture of the winning yacht “making waves” dominated page two. It said the Swiss team won “in one of the most exciting races in the history of the sailing competition”.
The International Herald Tribune left its America’s Cup story for its sports pages. “Too many little things went right for Alinghi and its skipper, Brad Butterworth, in this cup for [the victory] to be a question of coincidence.”
British paper The Independent said the unpredictable conditions were on the Swiss side in the last race. “The weather gods contrived one last Valencian piece of trickery: a shutdown and shift of direction in the wind with only a few hundred yards to run,” it said.
Washingtonpost.com declared that “the landlocked Swiss are masters of the ocean. Again.” It noted wryly that the Alinghi team were from Switzerland – “a country more often associated with alpine skiing and winter snowscapes”.
swissinfo, Dale Bechtel
The inaugural race was held off the Isle of Wight in 1851. America dominated the race until 1983 when Australia won the trophy.
In 1995 New Zealand became only the third country to win the competition, successfully defending their title in 2000.
The Swiss syndicate Alinghi sailed to victory against Black Magic in 2003 and became the first European team to win the Auld Mug.
The 2007 America’s Cup – off the coast of Spain – started on June 23 and was a best-of-nine series.
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