NATION’S CUP: ALINGHI AND ONE WORLD SURE SEMIFINALISTS
Trieste, 18th June 2003

In the third day of racing of the fourth edition of the Nation’s Cup in Trieste, Team Alinghi and Team OneWorld conquered a placing in the semi-finals, in the meanwhile, the other two contenders are still to be placed.

After this morning’s poor weather conditions, only at 14:30 was it able to have the first of the three races in program for the first Round Robin. Team Alinghi (Jochen Schuemann) beat the Swedes
Victory Challenge (Magnus Holmberg) with a margin of 15 seconds, it was a toughed out battled until Victory got a penalty and then lost the race.

At 16:00 the match against the Americans of OneWorld driven by James Spithill and the Italian of Mascalzone Latino led by Vasco Vascotto. The start was won by the American’s, but at the first mark Vascotto was able to take the lead. During the rest of the race, the Italian team also got a penalty and despite a great race, they weren’t able to recuperate their lead. Spithill won only by a five second advantage.

The last race of the day was against Alinghi and Oracle, and Schuemann’s men were able to win this race as well with a 20 second lead over Chieffi. Although the two teams had both really great starts, and were basically equal during the race, a great manoeuvre by the Swiss gave them the win.

After these races, the organizers had to suspend the last race due to extreme weather conditions with wind of about 30 knots. Tomorrow the program is to finish the Round Robin and eventually start the matches of the semi-finals, while the Second Round Robin has been cancelled definitely.

Results:
Alingi, 4 points – OneWorld, 3 points – Mascalzone Latino, 2 points -Victory, GBR Challenge, Oracle 1 point.