Tapu Misa: Farewell to a not-so-magnificent obsession

How galling. The Swiss were asleep when Alinghi finally put Team New Zealand - and the rest of us - out of our misery.

When news of their new trophy reached Switzerland, reporters had to look hard to find evidence of excitement.

Much of it seemed to be emanating from the Societe Nautique de Geneve - the yacht club Alinghi represents and the cup's new home. There, I'm told, champagne and kiwifruit were served to shouts (en Francais, of course) of: "Come and eat your Kiwis here."

This being Switzerland, though, a certain neutrality has greeted the acquisition of the Auld Mug. Oh sure, the post office is issuing a special Alinghi stamp, and there's a victory parade planned this weekend, but the truth is that most Swiss people have been somewhat underwhelmed. There's been too much else going on. Ski championships, hockey playoffs and now a week-long Mardi Gras street party.

There's a lot to be said for that cool Swiss detachment. I can't imagine them being as desperate or as devastated were they to lose the cup in three years.

Unlike many of us, of course. We've never been very good at sporting defeats. Our sense of national pride is so fragile that the loss of any major sporting encounter has tended to plunge us into a state of mourning. With the 2003 America's Cup regatta, though, some of us went beyond being merely passionate about our sport - and it wasn't a good look.

It was a strange campaign from the start. That jingoistic little number served up by the ad agency to the tune of Dave Dobbyn's Loyal stirred more unease than loyalty in me, and the hostility whipped up by the BlackHeart campaign left a bad taste. There was a fraction too much hubris in Team New Zealand and, as it turned out, a fraction too little preparation.

Still, it was hard to ignore, and as the legal battles ended and the racing began, our family became absorbed - especially when Chris Dickson and Russell Coutts duelled for the Louis Vuitton Cup. We sided with the occasionally irascible Dickson, partly because he was the underdog and partly because he wasn't Coutts. True, he wasn't sailing for us either, but that seemed okay somehow. He hadn't actually rejected New Zealand, it was the other way around.

Not that the whanau were all of one mind. The rebellious 9-year-old was steadfastly in the Coutts camp. He went around singing Disloyal just to niggle us. As he reasoned, Alinghi was going to win, so what was the point in cheering for a losing side? Besides which, Coutts was a New Zealander. What was our problem? What indeed.

In the spirit of sportsmanship, the fervent Kiwi supporters in the house were told to back off, that Coutts and Co were entitled to choose not to sail for New Zealand, and that it wasn't kosher to call them traitors.

And for a while peace reigned though, admittedly, being generous-spirited was easier when New Zealand still stood a chance of winning than it was when the Kiwi campaign literally began to break asunder.

The problem was explaining it all to the children. Why had Coutts and Butterworth left the New Zealand team? Money. Why did Alinghi win in the end? Money, again. I had to agree with the New York Times verdict of the result: "They had money, they were organised and they had the world's best sailors." Our sailors, in fact, but let's not dwell on that. The lesson was clear: Have money, will sail.

They say sport is character-building, even ennobling. That it teaches our kids values and important lessons - such as teamwork, co-operation, dedication, sportsmanship and playing by the rules. The old Hillary Commission tried to sell the idea that the competitive spirit is not all about winning. It's about coping with success, with failure, with pressures, with other people's expectations.

But you'd have to say that the evidence doesn't quite support that proposition. Some of our so-called sporting heroes have been lousy role models, guilty of doping, bribery, drunken and loutish antics off the field - and questionable tactics on it.

Which is why I'm in no rush to join the ranks of parents who run themselves ragged trying to cram as much sport as possible into their kids' lives. It's not that we're lazy and unmotivated or, as Dame Kiri would say, "a bit Maori". We just refuse to be obsessed.

As it turns out, the 12-year-old is a netball fan who looks up to the statuesque Bernice Mene, not only because she is a former Silver Fern captain and Samoan, but because she happens also to have a couple of university degrees. The 9-year-old became keen on basketball after watching the Tall Blacks in action during the world champs. Strangely enough, no one wants to take up yachting.

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Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/americascup