(Photo: Chris Cameron ETNZ)From Magnus Wheatley on the Rule 69 blog:
2-1 up and everything to play for. The Alinghi team deteriorating into a mass of recriminations, back-stabbing and head-scratching....
Is this pay-back time or what for the scenes in Auckland in 2003? The Kiwi fans are going nuts, the kiwi media can't believe what they're seeing and the mighty tower of Babel created by Bertarelli and Bonnefous is crashing around them...
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch...go the Kiwis. 5-4 to Team New Zealand was my prediction and I'm sticking to it!
From my current fav - Kimball Washington:
Something happened here today. The underdogs took a big bite out of the big dogs and the place went crazy. There were reporters running, Kiwi fans running, an ear-shattering chorus of horns, why, you'd think the America's Cup had done been won. Instead, it's Emirates Team New Zealand up 2 races to 1 in a first-to-five.
Picture NZL 92 closing oh so slowly toward their final meeting with Alinghi on an agonizing light-air reach to the finish—if you think it's hard to watch something like that, try being on board when you need to go faster and the boat . . . just . . . won't . . . go . . . faster—and New Zealand Herald reporter Julie Ash was watching and hardly breathing and wringing her hands and shaking like a leaf....(be sure to click through the link above to read it all but if you can't be bothered at least read the next bit...)
He went on to say...
...So we've just had the most dramatic America's Cup race in 24 years, and who does Alinghi send to the press conference? Rodney Ardern, runner/grinder Dean Phipps, runner/pitman.
Well-spoken, superb sailing athletes whose skills go far beyond those job descriptions. But not up to the drama of the moment. I was not angry. I was insulted.....
A seemingly VERY good statistic for Kiwi fans from Tom Ehman on the BMW Oracle blog:
...Except for the weird multi-defender match of 1871 in which the challenger Livonia won Match 3, and the even weirder 1988, to the best of your Ed.'s knowledge and memory, the winner of Match 3 has always gone on to win the AC. (Click through to read the history)
From Gary Jobson on SailingWorld.com
...It was a tough day for the helmsman. At one point on the first windward leg Alinghi's helmsman Ed Baird looked over his shoulder at Emirates Team New Zealand surging into a big lead and uttered (expletive deleted) and thrust his head down. He looked mighty frustrated....
From Sailing Anarchy - the headlines "What a load of Butter Balls" and "Bungleworth"...and a story filled with too many expletives to republish here (I'm not the kinda gal!).
The NZ Herald had too much coverage to highlight any one piece, but check out the AC site here.
And of course from Thierry - some great shots of the day including this one of Kiwi midbowman Richard Meacham's dip in the Med today.
C Thierry Martinez
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