Yachting: Coutts praises all teams

Three times America's Cup winner Russell Coutts wants to set the record straight. He says he did not tell Swiss paper La Tribune de Geneve he thought Italy's Luna Rossa would win the America's Cup challenger series - meaning Emirates Team New Zealand wouldn't.

Coutts said he was misquoted. "I am upset because the story was completely wrong. I never said that, nor I have ever thought it," he said from Geneva.

Luna Rossa was looking good, "but even that does not amount to predicting they are going to win".

It was too early to say who will win the challenger series to take on his old team Alinghi, he said.

"We all have our opinions on who is a contender and I am happy to say that Luna Rossa, Team New Zealand and probably some of the other teams including Oracle are looking strong."

Meanwhile, Alinghi have proved they are definitely deserving of the favourites tag. Just when it looked like a few chinks were beginning to appear in the armour of the Swiss syndicate, skippered by New Zealander Brad Butterworth, they beat Luna Rossa 2-0 to book a place in the final of the 12th cup pre-regatta in Valencia.

Their opponents will be the winner of this morning's match between Emirates Team New Zealand and BMW Oracle Racing who yesterday had a win each in the best of three series.

Having suffered three losses in the round robin competition, Alinghi had showed some vulnerability in this regatta. Their race yacht, SUI75, which was built for the last America's Cup, had looked a little sticky against some of the new boats in some conditions, while the Alinghi crew - usually flawless around the race track - let a couple of mistakes creep into their game.

However, against Luna Rossa yesterday the formidable Alinghi of old returned, sending an ominous warning to the challengers. On a day where nailing the wind shifts was the difference between winning and losing, the Swiss were right on the money.

Even in their second race when they were over at the start, handing the Italians a comfortable lead, Alinghi stayed within reach of their opponents.

Then, almost unbelievably, they sailed into better breeze in the final leg to cross the finish line with a 15- second win adding to their 29-second win in the first race. Adding insult to injury is the fact Alinghi are still racing their old boat, SUI75 - which has been chopped and changed around, yet can still keep up with new boats in the fleet.

Team New Zealand strategist Ray Davies said Alinghi's win over Luna Rossa shows they "are a still a pretty tight, class act and extremely hard to beat when the pressure it on".

However, he was confident the gap between Alinghi and the challengers had closed. "I believe they are not the same team they were a year ago in terms of dominance. They were the benchmark but I think the other teams are catching up to them.

"We are sailing in the same conditions all the time, with good crew work and communication, and we get to watch videos of how they are doing it - so we feel we are getting to the pinnacle."

Following their ordinary performance in the last regattas, in which they were troubled by less than slick crew work and gear failure, Team New Zealand and their new boat NZL84 have continued to impress both upwind and downwind in light and moderate conditions. Nothing separates the top four boats in terms of speed - but, of the three new boats, NZL84 is the one most would deem as fastest, if only by a fraction. Their crew work probably faced its toughest test yesterday. On a day where picking the shifts was a must in the fickle breeze, Team New Zealand recovered from losing the first race to Oracle by 33s, to putting in a superb defensive effort in the second, which claimed them a 1.09 minute win.

Their performance here has been extremely encouraging. The key for them now is to continue improving and hope like heck that, Alinghi's boatshed - where their new boat is taking shape - doesn't contain a "rocket ship".