America's Cup: Artemis can't pick a winner between Team New Zealand and Oracle Team USA

Artemis Racing can only reflect, as they exit the America's Cup challenger final. Photo/Gilles Martin-Raget

Artemis Racing are not prepared to pick a winner, but have promised the America's Cup challenge - Team NZ v Oracle Team USA - will be the most entertaining sporting contest of the year.

The Swedish syndicate bowed out of the regatta today, beaten 5-2 by the Kiwis, after light winds off Bermuda delayed the almost inevitable for a few hours.

Helmsman Nathan Outteridge and tactician Iain Percy expressed disappointment, but pride at their team's performance to progress this deep into the event.

Artemis were the only team to topple Oracle Team USA on the Great Sound, beating them in both head-to-head contests during the challenger qualifying series.

And they had presented Emirates Team New Zealand with their sternest test of all the challengers.

But asked to predict who would lift the trophy over the next couple of weeks, the Artemis hierarchy wasn't prepared to stick their necks out.

"That is a very tough question," shrugged Outteridge.

Percy was more forthcoming, but just as non-committal.

"Honestly, when we started this, we didn't know who was going to win it," he said.
"There's not many sports like that.

"It's blown me away, doing the racing, and part of that excitement is you never know who win while you're in the race, let alone asking us two weeks before the end of it, because anything can happen.

"One of the reasons anything can happen is it's so darn hard to do. Pulling off foiling gybes in light airs like to today takes the co-ordination of six people to get things absolutely spot on.

"Because of that, we can't tell you who's going to win this thing - it genuinely will come down to the wire - but we can tell you it will be the most entertaining sporting contest of 2017."

For Percy the ending of Artemis' campaign provided a silver lining. He was set to jump on a plane back to London tonight with the birth of his first child due today.

The Artemis manager said he would be back for the America's Cup starting Sunday and said he was confident that if Team New Zealand beat Oracle Team USA that a similar format would be used in the next regatta.

"So much faith [in Team New Zealand] to look at this product...it's pretty hard to deny this racing is some of the best sport we've ever watched in the last 20 years."