Americas Cup site could be controlled in US

By Keith Newman

The official America's Cup Website, providing live coverage of the event to yachties, sports fans and Internet users worldwide, may be hosted overseas.

Telecom spokesman Glen Sowry said details were still being worked through with its partner, United States Internet developer and sports-hosting organisation Quokka.

Mr Sowry suggested hosting in the US, for example, would not be unreasonable, considering "a large part of the audience will be offshore."

Compaq Computer has been signed up by America's Cup 2000 as its official computing, information technology and digital media partner. The site (www.americascup2000.org) will be run on Compaq servers.

Telecom will provide data links between the yachts on the water and the media centre.

It is planned to have stories from the competing sailors, a live race viewer, traditional sports reporting and a chronicle of events using video, audio and graphics. Compaq will provide non-stop computing technology similar to that used by banks and the Eftpos network, plus a server farm similar to that put together for the Whitbread round-the-world race, which featured 60 clustered machines.

Tony Lambert, project director for Compaq America's Cup, said the site was likely to be distributed to the east and west coast of America and Europe to ensure the world could have reliable access.

Meanwhile, plans to integrate the cup site and the Louis Vuitton Challenge site may have to be shelved.

The America's Cup Challenger Association has signed with TWI Interactive, which has its own computer sponsor.

A history of dispute between Quokka and TWI Interactive is believed to have led to a standoff over original plans to create a single supersite for the challenger series leadup race, which begins in September, and the America's Cup finals from November through to March 2000.