The myth became a legend in Barcelona. Team New Zealand won the Copa del América this Saturday after beating Ineos Britannia (7-2) in the final and entered the Olympus of sailing by lifting the Hundred Guineas Jug, the oldest sports trophy in the world, for the third consecutive time. No other squad had achieved a similar feat in 173 years of competition. The triumph catapults the eternal Defender to the level of the schooner America, which in 1851 beat an entire fleet of ships from the British Empire in the first edition; or Australia II, which ended in 1983 with a 132-year American rule. Winner of four of the last eight editions and become the flagship of the competition, the America’s Cup is now also Team New Zealand’s Cup.
Ineos Britannia fell with honor on a sixth day that took a while due to the lack of wind. The British put the champion on the ropes in a couple of moments of the regatta, but the day ended on the fast track: the first time was the charm, the best metaphor for what the match definitive. The Defender has been superior almost every day, and only the high waves on Wednesday on the fourth day that Ineos took advantage of to win the two races of the day overshadowed the New Zealand recital. Their dominance goes far beyond Barcelona and takes on superlative dimensions: the team has 21 wins and only 6 losses in the last three finals of the Copa del América.
The Team New Zealand era is also that of Peter Burling, Kiwi captain and coxswain. Triple champion of the competition, he is the tip of the iceberg of a true Dream Team. Between the four untouchables of the crew (Burling and Nathan Outteridge, the two helmsmen; and Andy Maloney and Blair Tuke, the two flight controllers) they have 20 gold medals between Olympic Games and world championships. The rapport of Burling and Outteridge, staunch rivals in the Games (they won gold and silver in 2012 and 2016) and this latest signing for this campaign, has been crucial to minimizing the talent of Ben Ainslie, the leader of Ineos Britannia.
But if Barcelona marks a before and after in the history of Team New Zealand and the America’s Cup, no one dares to say what the competition’s footprint will be in the city. Announced with great fanfare two and a half years ago by institutions and the administration, the fit with citizens has been complex. Despite the celebration at sea by the numerous boats that accompanied the sailboats on the regatta field and the numerous fans who came to the fan zones to follow the last regatta on what was clearly the best day, television audiences have generally been low (between 0.5 and 1% of share on average in Teledeporte and Esport 3 approximately) and the presence of fans in the designated areas during competition days has been mainly fueled by foreigners.
The insistence of the organization and political representatives on repeat that the Catalan capital hosted the third most important competition in the world after the World Cup and the Olympic Games; as if this had to guarantee social roots in a city with experience in both events, capable of comparing the value of the main sporting events in all their magnitudes.
With hardly any relationship between Barcelona and the Copa del América beyond the proximity to the two editions of Valencia (2007 and 2010), the abrupt announcement in March 2022 of the choice of the venue just two and a half years after the start of the competition did not give room to pedagogically introduce an event of great tradition in other territories. No one can dispute the legendary magnitude of a 173-year-old competition, but no one has been able to guarantee that it was enough to land on his feet in the city..
Some Barcelona residents have reasons to believe that the competition was presented in 2022 with arguments from the 1990s: urban transformation, tourism and economic exploitation. And in the middle of the debate about Barcelona’s relationship with tourism, with a generational crisis due to lack of access to housing and in a new political stage in Catalonia; The oldest competition in sport has become a weapon that has transcended beyond the sporting field.
Jaume Collboni’s socialist City Council has defended its celebration as a sign of the city’s new dynamism after the previous City Council’s misgivings about large sporting events. The Catalan bourgeoisie, behind the organization, has recovered part of the space lost after its decomposition during the processes. And a good part of the social fabric has rejected the Copa del América due to its links with the elites and its attributed tax benefits.
No one, however, achieved the most important thing: building a host team to compete in the premier category. Without a Spanish team, key to linking with the public according to the sociology of sportthe local fans have been missing a hero. Only the spirit of Sail Team BCN, which achieved a spectacular third place in the women’s category after training 99% of the time in a simulator, gave shine to the national sailing in Barcelona. Sílvia Mas herself, leader of the team, wondered shortly after falling in the semifinals whether the lack of support was due to political or business reasons. “It’s strange not to have had my own boat in Barcelona,” he lamented.
The result is that no one dares to predict what the future of the Cup will be, after the flirtation of all parties in recent months. The City Council assures in public that it would like to keep it in Barcelona; But privately he says that he does not want to pay the same price once the planned works that have modified the profile of the Barcelona coastline have been carried out. And Grant Dalton, head of Team New Zealand and organizer of the next edition for having won this one, already hinted in an interview in EL PAIS that some things could be improved by estimating a 6.5 out of 10 if I would repeat in the city under identical conditions. The New Zealand team raised a significant flag on their boat that read Many thanks Barcelona, although it was missing the important part: until next time or forever.
Valencia and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) have shown their interest in hosting the next edition (Dalton is already talking about 2026) although part of the New Zealand political class demands a return to Auckland (New Zealand) to succeed Barcelona and host the Team New Cup Zealand, a legendary team on the sea.
