Emirates Team NZ celebrate victory in the America's Cup challenger final. Photo/Ricardo Pinto
Emirates Team NZ celebrate victory in the America's Cup challenger final. Photo/Ricardo Pinto
Team NZ helmsman Peter Burling wasted no time turning his attention to his next opponents - the old foes, Oracle Team USA - after securing the America's Cup challenge off Bermuda today.
In a race that was initially abandoned and then further delayed by light winds, the Kiwis finally dispatchedArtemis Racing of Sweden 5-2 in their first-to-five match-up to secure their fifth tilt at the Auld Mug. They have also hosted two defences of the trophy.
But Burling was quick to take aim at Oracle and pay tribute to Artemis for pushing his team to new levels.
"They've [Oracle] been sitting in the shed over there and are probably about to go out training," said Burling. "Artemis has been an absolutely amazing opponent and really pushed us incredibly hard.
"That's something we can take forward into that next round. We've had some really, really hard racing from an amazing team like Artemis, which will put us in good shape heading into the Cup."
One of the specific areas Burling thought Artemis had helped his team was at the start, where Sweden skipper Nathan Outteridge dominated over the first day, but his counterpart had battled back to gain parity yesterday and even an edge today.
"One of the really pleasing things for us is that Artemis hasn't lost a pre-start to Oracle in a very long time," Burling told a post-race press conference.
"They definitely are very, very good in the pre-start area and we felt like we've improved significantly in the last couple of days to take a couple of pre-starts off them today.
"They've been absolutely amazing in pushing us forward in that area."
Burling denied that his team had been keeping a wary eye on Oracle, since they finished the challenger qualifying series and returned to the training track.
"We've just been worrying about getting past these guys [Artemis] and it was one step at a time," he said. "We're really, really happy to be going through to the Cup match and we feel we can bring it home to New Zealand."
The America's Cup challenge will be raced over a first-to-seven-win format, beginning Sunday (NZ time). New Zealand will begin one win behind, after their rivals took out the challenger qualifying series two weeks ago.
Team New Zealand at the America's Cup 1988 - Lost to Stars and Stripes 88 0-2 1995 - Beat Young America 5-0 2000 - Beat Luna Rossa 5-0 - Defence 2003 - Lost to Alinghi 0-5 - Defence 2007 - Lost to Alinghi 2-5 2013 - Lost to Oracle Team USA 8-9
