Alinghi eyeing opponents

By JULIE ASH

Alinghi tactician Brad Butterworth would like to see his team bite the bullet and race the strongest team in the quarter-finals.

And on present form, that is Chris Dickson's Oracle BMW Racing.

But the smart money on syndicate row says Alinghi will choose Prada.

Alinghi finished at the top of the table after the double round-robin competition ahead of Oracle, OneWorld and Prada.

Because they finished first, Alinghi have the luxury of being able to choose which one of the top four teams they will line up against in the best-of-seven races in the quarter-finals.

Sweden's Victory Challenge finished fifth, ahead of GBR Challenge, Team Dennis Conner and Le Defi Areva, and also have the right to chose who they race in the quarter-finals, which start tomorrow week.

Alinghi and Victory Challenge had 24 hours after the second round to decide. They will reveal their choice today.

The decision is crucial for the Swedes, because unlike the top four, who have two lives, the bottom four have just one life, which means that if they lose in the quarter-finals they exit the competition.

But for Alinghi the decision comes down to whether they want to take a gamble and race their hardest opponent with the hope of beating them and forcing them into the repechage, or whether they want to race a team they are more confident of beating so they have a better chance of advancing straight to the semifinals.

Like Victory Challenge, Alinghi will take into consideration factors such as the weather forecast, past results, the strengths and weakness of the other teams and their yachts, and whether they are likely to change yachts.

"Probably we'll be looking to pick the strongest team," Butterworth said.

"There are a lot of boats out there in the top four - some that are improving all the time and some that we haven't seen, boats that are probably new, that we haven't seen before.

"So there are different strategies that you can take and one of them would be to pick the strongest out of the four."

But when asked how Alinghi would define the strongest team, Butterworth replied: "They're all pretty tough.

"We've lost to Oracle and OneWorld and had two very close races with Prada. On any given day any boat could win. Any one of those three boats is pretty potent at the moment."

For Alinghi, the advantage of racing the strongest team is that if they manage to beat them, their opponents then have to compete in a repechage against the winning teams from the bottom four.

"With the Louis Vuitton the way it's structured, you only get so many sails that you're allowed to measure in. They're very important.

"That team will use more sails, do more races. So if you can stay on the top side of the ladder, you get a chance to sail against your other boat more, do more testing, and you're a little bit more free."

As the only team to have beaten Alinghi in the second round, one would assume the strongest team are Oracle.

But around the Viaduct, the talk is that Alinghi will choose Prada.

Prada skipper Francesco de Angelis suffered at the hands of Russell Coutts in the 2000 cup when Team New Zealand beat Prada 5-0.

This, and Alinghi's win over Prada in the first round, gives the Swiss team a huge psychological advantage.

The other option for Alinghi is OneWorld, who had a poor run in the second round after changing the configuration of their boat.

But OneWorld could return to the fold if they find their form of old.

In the bottom four, Victory Challenge beat Team Dennis Conner and Le Defi Areva in both rounds.

They lost to GBR in the first round, but beat them in the second round.

Most would expect Victory Challenge to choose the French challenge Le Defi, who they beat by more than a minute in both rounds.

But they may go for Team Dennis Conner simply because the narrow Stars and Stripes boat USA66 has not been a great success, whereas the French boat is fast and the crew just need work, which is easy to fix.

Also, Victory Challenge must think further down the track. If they race the French they might not improve themselves, whereas if they take on Team Dennis Conner and win, it will better prepare them for the next step.

The second round of the challenger series drew to a close yesterday. Oracle beat Le Defi by 1m 07s and then downed Victory Challenge by 43s.

Alinghi were meant to race Prada, but opted to forfeit the match, handing Prada the point.

"With respect to the other team, we've talked to them and told them of our decision not to race," Butterworth said.

"We've actually found it quite tough. This regatta's gone on a little bit with the weather, and it's been pretty brutal, so we're going to give everyone a day off."

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