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Finally they smiled.
Team New Zealand won the Louis Vuitton Cup in Valencia this morning beating Luna Rossa by 22 seconds in race five to claim a 5-0 clean sweep.
Champagne flowed as the team were handed the much sought after trophy in Valencia in front of hundreds of friends, fans and spectators.
"We are absolutely thrilled. It has been a very tough series," said Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker.
"We are just enjoying the moment right now."
In a tough final race the New Zealander held off a spirited challenge from the Italians who came back at them on the final run.
"The last race was a tough race," Barker said. "Every time we got a nice little jump it would evaporate just as quickly in pressure and shifts and things.
"Luna Rossa are the sort of team that never say die. They sailed a very, very good tight race. We were able to keep it that little bit tighter and stay ahead when we needed to."
When asked when he thought the race was won, Barker replied:
"When they put the flag up at the finish line. It was shaping up to be a tricky last run, after the breeze dropped away. Fortunately it built just that little bit after we came down to the finish and made things a little less tense."
Looking back over last 6-8 weeks, Barker said the team has developed "brilliantly".
"The team is sailing very well. I think the team has got progressively better and better and I think that is what you need to do over these sorts of series to win.
"You don't want to sail your best in the first round robin and hopefully we haven't left our best in the finals.
"We know there is a lot of areas where we can still do better. We'll need to see how we stack up against Alinghi."
"I think we have always had confidence that things are going well. It was just little bits and pieces. We have worked very hard on our communication. I don't think we have ever sailed badly, things might not necessarily have gone our way or could have gone a little bit better. I think in this final we have definitely stepped up another level."
The Louis Vuitton Cup victory means Team New Zealand can now focus on extracting revenge on the Swiss, something Barker said has been far from their minds.
"To be honest we haven't focused on them at all we have just been trying to get through this. The biggest mistake we could make 3-0 up, 4-0 was to be looking across the fence and be thinking what about them? We'll have a couple of days off then we will definitely be spending a lot of time figuring out how we want to position ourselves against them."
