KEY POINTS:
VALENCIA - They came last this time but China Team are plotting a glorious America's Cup yachting future once the spotlight turns away from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
China's first America's Cup team started off with little more than a Chinese flag, Chinese money and a Chinese
dream.
Venture capitalist Wang Chaoyong had been blown away by the high-tech elegance of the Formula One of sailing at a regatta in France.
Knowing it would take years to build a syndicate from scratch, he did it the corporate way and bought a team in 2005.
Wang's challenge to the former crew and shore team of France's Le Defi was not only to sail in Valencia in 2007 but to build a long-term yachting programme in China.
"There was not much of a culture of sailing there and the America's Cup was very foreign," executive manager Xavier De Lesquen said at China Team's base.
Since 2005, the French crew have worked closely with the Qingdao yacht club -- which will host the Olympic sailing events -- training young athletes and taking people out to sea to give them the bug for yachting.
"It's incredible that in three years, sailing has developed as a trendy sport in China," De Lesquen said.
By the time the America's Cup rolled around this year, the team had trained up five Chinese sailors to take positions on the 17-man boat.
As the sailing culture and expertise builds, De Lesquen wants to hand over more tactical roles to Chinese crew.
"Our objective is to get some very good sailors after the Olympics or pick up people who don't make selection in December but have been training intensively for the last three years. You need that sort of technical experience," he said.
"We won't have a Chinese tactician on board at the 33rd America's Cup but we'll be training people so they have a good level of experience for the 34th."
In the meantime, De Lesquen hopes to have more Chinese working in the team and to train more Chinese sailors up from their smaller Olympic class boats to faster, keeled yachts.
De Lesquen said he hoped to raise his next America's Cup budget of 35 to 40 million euros ($62-71 million) easily as several companies wanted to buy into the dream of China competing again in the world's oldest sailing event.
This time, China Team challenged for the America's Cup on a budget of 14m euros, about one tenth of what big teams like BMW Oracle and Alinghi have spent, but they had problems with their boat and crew and came 11th out of 11.
"Despite the money, the boys did very well," De Lesquen said.
"Besides, this is only the beginning."
- REUTERS