KEY POINTS:
The America's Cup is New Zealand's cup. That was the inimitable phrase Pete Montgomery shrieked when we could scarcely believe we had won it. In some ways that is easier to believe now than it was when we held it. Valencia has underlined the degree to which New Zealanders have made this event their own, not in its financing and marketing but where it finally counts, on board the yachts, and less expectedly this time, in its popular following.
The numbers of New Zealanders who went to Valencia, many from London and other places nearby but just as many from home, was a pleasant surprise. They were a high proportion, highly visible, of the crowd at the venue on most race days and made the "woolshed", where they watched the contests on a big screen, an institution sure to endure in our hearts.
The team they went to support has not won the cup but it has brought us something we should value even more. We have known the euphoria of winning a prize that once seemed impossibly prestigious for a place of our size. We have known the dismay of losing it to our own, failing even to float a competent boat. This team has given us resilience and more. It has proved that the only better crew is largely ours too.
New Zealanders should be the first to recognise the achievement of Brad Butterworth, Murray Jones, Warwick Fleury, Simon Daubney and Dean Phipps. They are the core of the Alinghi crew, as they were of Team NZ when it won. They have now won the America's Cup four times in succession; a remarkable record at this level in any sport. They are hard-nosed professionals who work for personal wealth and satisfaction not national sentiment, but they and their earnings will come home.
Our flag carriers at Valencia, led by Grant Dalton, have finished not far behind them. Emirates Team NZ beat all other challengers with comparative ease, winning the Louis Vuitton Cup in a clean sweep. When it came to the America's Cup, the Kiwi rivals turned on a closer, more compelling contest than the event has seen in recent times. Butterworth's tactical toughness was a revelation now that he was no longer in the shadow of Russell Coutts.
Team NZ kept close enough to seize rare opportunities but they were well beaten, particularly in yesterday's gripping finale when Alinghi twice passed them upwind and forced a penalty that proved decisive in a nail-biting finish.
It was a magnificent series and both teams can be proud of it. Team NZ, under Dalton's single-minded direction, have done enough to deserve the country's continued support. The Government is right to provide immediate finance to keep the vital cogs together; a view we did not hold after the last debacle. We were wrong and Trevor Mallard's judgment was right. The country has had a treat, as well as a good return in taxation and priceless exposure from its continued prominence in one of the world's truly top drawer contests.
The America's Cup now remains in the hands of Alinghi's patron, Ernesto Bertarelli, who sees its future in global brand sponsorship rather than national rivalry. But even he, looking back on the past two months, might wonder how lively the venue would have been without the national sentiment that sent so many New Zealanders to Valencia. Commercial sponsorship and national identity can sail together, as Team NZ proved even with another nation's airline as its name sponsor.
The many New Zealanders who went to Valencia, and the many more at home watching television in the early hours, have made this contest ours. It has not finished as hoped this time but already we look forward to the next. That is Team NZ's achievement.
