Brian Rudman: The nation mourns a patient taking an eternity to die

Black is an awful colour for a flag, isn't it? Almost as dire as that dirge Loyal, which is supposed to inspire feelings of patriotism and support for Team New Zealand.

Well, it doesn't seem to have done much inspiring for the glum-faced tall poppies, Ed Hillary et al, who feature in state television's call to arms.

There they are, shoulder to shoulder like a Dad's Army platoon, facing seaward ready to repulse the enemy with nothing but their wooden glares.

You have these idle thoughts when you're sitting around in the emergency room waiting for news of brain activity from the patient. Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Will Team New Zealand die? Will they live? Will life ever be the same?

And after a week of anxiety and of bedside chatter with people you hardly know, you start to wonder if it wouldn't be for the best if the patient did the decent thing and slipped quietly away. Or that a grim-faced doctor - in black, of course - gave you the chance to turn off life support.

That way, at least you'd get some finality - to say nothing of a good night's sleep.

Has there ever been such a drawn-out sporting event?

I take back all I've ever said about cricket being soporific. Compared with America's Cup yachting, it's so in-your-face that it should be urine-tested for signs of performance-enhancing substances.

Cricket's so speedy that you could have a five-day test between two America's Cup races and still have time to spare for a drunken haka, a round or two of carpark fisticuffs and a long lie-in the next day.

By the time we get a result from the current race - sometime in March or April 2004 the way things are going - I'll have forgotten what it's all about. Or which of the New Zealand-crewed yachts I'm supposed to be loyal to.

At least with a rugby game, you win or lose, have your high or low, then get on with life. All in an afternoon.

With the America's Cup, you're expected to maintain a loyal high, month in, month out, for three years.

Unsurprisingly, all this patriotic fervour produces some less-than-pretty moments.

The mean-spirited BlackHeart campaign was a trip to the ugly side. So is the bitchiness going on at the moment about who should decide when racing takes place.

Poor old Switzerland - the country - is starting to get it in the neck, too, even though hardly anyone sailing on Alinghi seems to be Swiss.

Outside media reports are starting to suggest we hate foreigners.

It's not true. We love them, as long as they know their place. And in a sports contest, that's second.

How we hanker back to the days of the last joust when the enemy was Prada. Now they were nice foreigners. Top of the line. They knew the rules - they lost and lost and lost and never complained.

Those easybeats were so nice that we even let them join our victory parade.

Now if only Mr Bertarelli would stick to the local custom and play by these simple ground rules, there'd be no need for the rumoured bulletproof vests. Or for the black-windowed jet rumoured to be waiting to whip him, his crew and the cup home in the dead of night.

Of all the ways of trying to keep the patriotic pot simmering during the races, state TV must take the prize. Having brainwashed us for three years about which side is up, they recently sent their Europe correspondent, my old colleague Ian Sinclair, into the heart of enemy territory.

His dispatches remind me of the American newsman sent to cover the Congo War in 1962. He clambered out of his plane and burst up to a group of fleeing Belgian nuns in the departure lounge yelling "Anyone here been raped and speaks English?"

Sinclair's problem in darkest Geneva is not so much finding someone who speaks English. It seems to be finding anyone who has even heard of the America's Cup. Or Auckland for that matter.

No wonder he ends up broadcasting from a bar each time. Has anyone worked harder to achieve so little?

Poor old Ian. Next stop Iraq, I wouldn't wonder.

All right, so I admit I'm being a bit precious in talking as though it's all over. For all I know there's an orca lurking behind Rangitoto, just itching to sink its teeth into Alinghi the next time it sails past.

But if Willy doesn't turn up, and Alinghi continues its winning ways, let's hope the long gaps between races has dulled the xenophobia of the fans. It's not a good look, either here or overseas.

We admired the way the Prada team and their supporters behaved in defeat. Is it too much to hope that Team New Zealand fans could emulate this?

That, of course, is if anyone can remember, by the time of the last race, why the yachts are still out there.

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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