KEY POINTS:
Team New Zealand's physical trainer David Slyfield says the sailors are in good shape going into the America's Cup match in Valencia.
Unlike Alinghi, who will go into the match fresh after being spared the gruelling challenger series, Team New Zealand have been competing since April 20.
With
this challenger series running to more compact timing than previous ones, it was always a concern that the challenger would arrive at the match physically and mentally exhausted.
However Slyfield, who also trains Olympic athletes including Sarah Ulmer, said he was impressed with the way the sailors came through the Louis Vuitton Cup.
"The one thing that has amazed me coming through the round robins, semis and coming into this week is the physical guys on the boat, the grinders, bowmen and mastman. Their strength levels are just as good as when we left New Zealand, which is something I hadn't expected."
Slyfield said the slow start to the regatta, where several days of racing were called off due to no wind, could be one of the reasons why.
"They'd come off the water after those drift-off days and go, 'Let's train'. Physically one of our fears, if you looked at that big long Louis Vuitton period then leading into the America's Cup, was that they were going to be fried and I was going to be dealing with a bunch of athletes who were run down and had lost all the attributes they came in with at the beginning of the cup.
"But it hasn't worked out like that at all."
Slyfield said the introduction of the cup pre-regattas allowed them to work on a formula to ensure the sailors arrived at each stage of the America's Cup in the best shape physically.
"One of my roles in the team is to monitor energy levels. I question each person in the team every day and they tell me how they feel.
"From that information we can set the training appropriately, and it impacts on the sailing programme to some degree, so that we can come into a regatta fresh and strong."
In the gap between the challenger series final and the match, Slyfield said the sailors would be working on building up their muscle mass. He said beating Luna Rossa 5-0 has allowed them time to come down physically and mentally and go back up.
"The America's Cup is really unique. We can only plan for each stage when we get to it ... You are thinking on your feet to some extent."
On race day the sailors stretch and some do light cardiovascular and injury-prevention exercises. Aside from finger injuries to Adam Beashel and Jeremy Lomas, the team had remained injury free.
