«Team New Zealand are the” All Blacks “of sailing»

Updated:21/11/2020 21:08h

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The British sailor Sir Ben Ainslie, skipper of the ‘INEOS Team UK’ and the most successful Olympic sailor, has described the ‘Team New Zealand’, defending the title in the 36th America’s Cup as “the All Blacks of sailing”.

Ainslie, who won the America’s Cup with Oracle Team USA in 2013 but fell short with his first British challenge four years later in Bermuda sees this edition, although with a short fleet, there are extraordinary talents and countless resources.

Talents like New Zealand Olympic and world champion Peter Burling and Australian Olympic runner-up and 17-time world champion Glenn Ashby make the New Zealand team a tough opponent to beat, especially in their own waters.

Ainslie considers that, “This edition is going to be one of the toughest, if not the toughest, of those that have been played to date if you look at the components of the teams’ crews.

In the Prada Cup, a challengers tournament, in which the INEOS Team UK, the Italian ‘Luna Rossa’ and the American ‘American Magic’ will compete, from which the rival of the New Zealand team will come out for the Cup in March 2021.

“All the teams are very, very strong, so just to get through the challengers tournament, we have a lot of work to do. And if we overcome that challenge, we will effectively face the ‘All Blacks’ of the sailing world, in their home waters. “, Ainslie said.

“And there is nothing more difficult than that, but that is what makes this Cup so special. If you can achieve that goal, and win both, against that type of rival, it would be an incredible feat.”, has specified.

Perhaps no one outside of Team New Zealand knows the New Zealand team as well as Ainslie as he aided in the team’s failed challenge in Valencia in 2007, where the Kiwis were defeated in the Cup final by the Swiss team Alinghi.

He signed for the American ‘Oracle’ as a tactician and together with Jimmy Spithill helped engineer an incredible 1-8 comeback to win 9-8 in the catamarans with 72ft foils in the Cup final in San Francisco in 2013 .

The British Olympic champion has also praised his team because, “We are confident and we have a great team. This organization started in Bermuda 2017 and we have come a long way since then. We have to keep going until we achieve the goal.”

“To achieve this you need great designers, great sailors and you need funding to compete in the America’s Cup. For the first time in a long, long time, we have those three key ingredients in a British team.“, It’s over.

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