Winning isn't everything - it's the only thing

Herald feature writer GRAHAM REID - whose sailing experiences have rarely involved anything smaller than an ocean liner - considers the importance of the America's Cup for New Zealanders.

As we headed down the final lap of last century, the weather cut up rough. In this nation so attached to sporting success it seemed we could do nothing right.

Certainly the case became overstated. Even after the rout of the All Blacks, life - for most people - went on as usual although if you believed the chatter of talkback and the collective grief councilling of columnists, we were a nation in a state of overwhelming grief.

It wasn't true, but for those attached to sporting success they were grim days indeed.

And then it rained on New Year's Eve.

Right now we could do with the smell of the sweet perfume of triumph - and from where better in this island nation than the water?

After long months of watching the yachts of other nations and corporate sponsors battle it out on the course and in committee rooms, we can finally feel the America's Cup racing is upon us.

For most people the competition for the recently completed Louis Vuitton has simply been an interesting diversion, the opening gambit before the main event.

Tomorrow sees the start of the real thing.

Because as a nation we have an almost unnatural attachment to winning, the America's Cup is important.

Financial considerations aside - and the dollar-value telephone numbers the money people speak do tend to blur the focus - the America's Cup is a great sporting event.

It puts high tech, natural talent, hard work and sophisticated psychological gamesmanship into the unpredictable world of the natural elements.

Whether the Cup is good for business is not something that concerns most people who won't see much other than the merest trickle-down.

But we can all enjoy the thrill of the high stakes competition racing where coming second means losing.

And many of us in this small nation have an emotional investment in the success of Team New Zealand.

We like to characterise ourselves as the giant killers, the little local guy whose talents and resourcefulness defeats the big, monied international players.

But, if recent experience is any measure, we can also be unforgiving of those who disappoint us.

Team New Zealand knows just what is resting on this one: by foregoing a defenders series of races it has invited all kinds of angry repercussions if it doesn't win.

But as anyone who knows sports will tell you, none of that matters once the game begins. There won't be a grinder thinking dollars, sponsorship endorsements or what might have been as the yacht makes its way out to the course.

Having learned from the All Black experience last year, Team New Zealand is sensibly talking down expectation.

But ask Sir Peter Blake or his mentor Sir Tom Clark and they have never been in any doubt: this was always going to be tough, and never under-estimate the challenger.

Certainly we have all the customary hometown advantages and the will to win. But while Team New Zealand also has a significant portion of the nation looking with hopeful eyes, there is another New Zealand so totally indifferent it might be willing the team to lose just to get this rich man's sport out of the way.

It's an unenviable position for those on the boat and the boardrooms.

And yes, the America's Cup is a rich person's sport. But that doesn't preclude anyone enjoying it.

Those kids in their first yachts being anxiously watched from shore by proud but concerned family don't think about the money. Nor do most spectators when the racing starts.

Those kids - with a Team New Zealand poster on their wall and maybe a pair of red socks in washing basket - and their parents who hitch the boat trailer to the car on weekends couldn't care less about the commercial benefits.

They just want to see two of the world's finest yachting teams in state of the art boats fight it out against each other and the vagaries of wind and water for the most prestigious yachting cup in the world.

They want to see the best being the best they can be.

Perhaps if we can, even only briefly, push aside those considerations of commerce and sponsorship, money and ego, we could see the America's Cup for what it once was and will be while the sails are full on race day: two disciplined, professional teams of athletes doing what they have trained all their lives for.

The America's Cup competition is one of the world's great yacht races for the world's oldest sporting trophy. And it's taking place in our own waters. That alone makes it an exciting, important event. Let the racing begin.