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Valencia to host America's Cup
26/07/2007 10:22 - (SA)
Valencia - The 33rd America's Cup will be raced in Valencia in 2009, organisers said on Wednesday, bringing sailing's most glittering event back to the Spanish city that held this year's regatta.
"You can hear the fireworks! Valencia is very excited - they've won the right to host the next America's Cup," Ernesto Bertarelli, the president of Cup holder Alinghi said via telephone.
Alinghi chose Valencia to hold the last America's Cup after putting the host city out to tender because its own Geneva-based yacht club has no access to the sea.
Valencia invested millions of euros to spruce up the town and build a new port, which attracted hordes of visitors, building up popular support for what had previously been seen as an elitist sports event.
"With all due respect to Alinghi, Valencia also won the America's Cup," said mayor Rita Barbera, adding that tourism to Spain's third-largest city had grown 32% thanks to the regattas.
Spain's public administration minister Elena Salgado said regional and central government authorities would pay 105 million euros to host the next America's Cup, 15 million euros more than they spent last time.
Alinghi, who won the America's Cup 5-2 against Team New Zealand at the start of July, said the 33rd America's Cup would kick off with two friendly regattas either side of next year's Olympics.
A spring regatta will be held in Valencia and an autumn one somewhere else in Europe. The teams will then come together again in spring of 2009 for the playoffs to decide who will challenge Alinghi for the Cup.
Four teams have so far been accepted as challengers for the 33rd America's Cup.
Alinghi have rejected a challenge from Oracle Racing, which contests the rules the Swiss syndicate set for the next event.
One of Oracle's issues was that because Alinghi was setting design rules for a new class of boat, they would get a head-start on building their yacht.
Bertarelli rejected that and said Alinghi would meet the accepted challengers in September to work out the class rule and publish it by the end of October, two months ahead of their previous schedule.
Next year's races will be sailed in old America's Cup boats while the new ones are being designed and built.
Bertarelli said teams would be allowed to build two boats but could not test them against each other - an expensive business that gives rich teams a considerable advantage on the water.
"It's going to save teams a lot of money and anyway, the fun is in racing," he said.
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