Two precious race points down the gurgler, one key member of the sailing team gone, another banned for four races and a quarter of a million dollar fine: there were plenty of blows for Oracle Team USA to absorb in today's jury decision.
But buried deep within the 14-page written decision was a telling line from Oracle chief executive Russell Coutts that hinted at the biggest impact the cheating scandal has had on the team. Even before today's penalties were imposed the incident had taken a heavy toll on the team.
In his testimony Coutts, an Olympic gold medallist and four times winner of the America's Cup, said the allegations Oracle had made illegal modifications to their boat during the world series regattas, subsequent investigations and jury hearings had been "hugely distracting", with the team losing days on the water at a critical time as they dealt with the case.
With team hierarchy, shore crew and members of the sailing team tied up with preparing for the hearings and given testimony, the month-long case has proved a huge disruption to Oracle's two-boat testing programme, which had been considered one of their key advantages over Team New Zealand.
The interruption to their sailing programme was taken into account as one of the mitigating factors for the jury in decided what penalty to hand down to the team, as was the "stress and reputation damage to innocent members of the team". It is clear in recent weeks the scandal has taken a heavy toll on the team, with Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill looking tired and downtrodden in his few appearances around the America's Cup village. A team insider said the crew are "hurting".
