America’s Cup: Swiss team wins second straight

VALENCIA, Spain – The landlocked Swiss are masters of the ocean.

Once again.

The Alinghi team from Switzerland – a country more often associated with Alpine skiing and winter snowscapes – successfully defended the coveted America’s Cup on Tuesday, beating Emirates Team New Zealand 5-2.

Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey congratulated the team, sending a telegram that read: “We Swiss find our way at sea, not just in the mountains.”

The finish in the seventh race of the 32nd America’s Cup was so close that fans on both sides were beside themselves with joy, each believing their team had won.

Alinghi won by one second, allowing the Swiss to beat New Zealand in the best-of-9 rematch that was four years in the making.

“Aside from the birth of my children, (today) is the best day of my life,” Alinghi owner Ernesto Bertarelli said.

Alinghi took the Auld Mug trophy away from the sailing-proud Kiwis by beating them 5-0 off Auckland in 2003, and brought it to Europe for the first time in its more than 150-year history.

Bertarelli was the only Swiss aboard the winning boat. Born in Italy, the biotech billionaire with an MBA from Harvard he put together a winning team made up of six Kiwis, three Americans, two Italians, and one each from Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, and Spain.

Bertarelli’s formula was to set up a smooth, corporate-style team drawing on the world’s best talent. Bertarelli even compared the team to the nation of Switzerland, in the center of Europe.

“We had to be open to other cultures,” he said. “We grow bigger through diversity.”

That diversity upset a lot of Kiwi fans because many of Alinghi’s sailors came from New Zealand.

Alinghi hired six of the key sailors in the Kiwis’ 2000 defense of the cup, including Russell Coutts, who left in 2004, and current skipper Brad Butterworth.