America’s Cup | schwingeninswitzerland

Switzerland has many large beautiful lakes surrounded by mountains. Even though it is a landlocked country, the Swiss can sail. They had a team, Alinghi, win the America’s Cup in 2003 and 2007. They sail on Lac Leman, the lake on which Geneva is situated.

Alinghi is the syndicate set up by Ernesto Bertarelli, racing under the colors of the Société Nautique de Genève. They set it up “to win the America’s Cup, while earning respect and recognition as a world-class sports team as well as sharing our passion”. Not surprisingly, not all the team was Swiss. They hired Russell Coutts, the successful skipper and helmsman of Team New Zealand (who won the America’s Cup for New Zealand in 1995 and successfully defended in 2000) and several other important Kiwi sailors, (including tactician Brad Butterworth and Grant Simmer). Apart from New Zealand, the Alinghi team consisted of members from: Germany, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Portugal,Turkey, Ireland, the UK (from Scotland and Wales), Belgium, South Africa, Australia, Uruguay, Argentina, Denmark, Ecuador, and Switzerland.

Not only did they splurge on the team, they shelled out for boats (SUI-64, the race boat, and the SUI-75). They were developed specifically for the race by the Alinghi team in close collaboration with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne , were developed.

On March 2, 2003, Alinghi sailed to a 5-0 victory against Team New Zealand (ironic, huh) winning the America’s Cup. They were the first team to win the Cup on its first attempt. They were also the first European team since the 1851 inaugural race to return the Auld Mug.

Immediately prior to this, After winning they (via America’s Cup Management) changed the rules to prevent any team members from moving between teams until completion of the next America’s Cup (which as the holders, they could do) and promptly fired it winning Skipper Russell Coutts. The rule change prevented him for sailing for another team in the cup.

In the 2007 America’s Cup, the team had many highly experienced members including: Brad Butterworth as tactician, Jochen Schümann, Peter Holmberg, Ed Baird, Juan Vila, Jordi Calafat, Warwick Fleury, Simon Daubney, and Murray Jones. Although they did well in the Match Race, they were defeated by Emirates Team New Zealand in the second race, but won their final race, defending the America’s cup with 5 wins to Team New Zealand’s 2. They won their last race by only 1 second!

As a result of this win, the International Olympic Committee awarded them the Coupe Olympique, the Olympic Cup, in 2003. One of the highest honors in sports, it is awarded to awarded institutions or associations with a record of merit and integrity in actively developing the Olympic Movement.

Alas, we couldn’t see them race in this year’s cup (even though there’s been plenty of publicity about there only being two teams competing, why the race was different this year, and opinions of the changes) which just took place in San Francisco. The team was disbanded in July 2010,. Don’t worry, there is still lots of sailing on the lake. If you’re not in Geneva, there’s sailing on other lakes so you can see it in Zurich, Lugano and other cities too.

Making a Jet d’Eau by pedaling

We finally got our bikes out of the our basement bomb shelter and went for a ride. The weather had been so nice, how could we not? Actually, we got them out a while ago, but I didn’t bring my camera along on that ride. This time, I was a little wiser.

Note the stiff breeze

The good news is that we went for a bike ride, made it back in once piece and successfully investigated beaches for the summer. The bad news is that (a) Geneva isn’t flat, (b) we didn’t look take the weather into account, and (c) we didn’t bring our passports so we couldn’t go across into France.

A team from Lake Geneva won the America’s Cup a few years ago. Seeing a sailing competition as we were heading out of Geneva should have been our first clue that it would be quite windy.

Traffic wasn’t a problem. I wish we could say the same for the hills. Living in Eaux-Vives, there is nowhere to go but up… literally. Switzerland isn’t flat and we can’t bike more than a kilometer without heading up a big hill (or two). A couple of years ago, we biked from Lisbon to Sagres and Sagres to Spain (with A2Z Adventures on a fantastic trip). Portugal isn’t flat either. Heading uphill on a bike on a sunny day, he had flashbacks.

The morning of our ride, I took our visitors to the airport on the tram and squeezed in a quick 7 miles by running home. After breakfast, we decided to go for a bike ride. From our window, we couldn’t tell how windy it was. Heading up the lakeside to Hermance, we had a tailwind and didn’t really notice the wind’s strength. Even when we reached Hermance, and saw a kite surfer, we didn’t think about biking back in the wind.

We checked out the Hermance‘s beach, did a tour of the cute town, and rode on to the border. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go into France because we forgot to bring our passports. Ooops.

This stream is the border between France and Switzerland

We rode back toward Geneva, straight into a headwind…the entire way. Even though we wanted to see more aggrestic splendor, I was pooped. How did I not notice the wind? There were signs. Flags, sailing competitions, kite surfing… How could I have been so blind. By the time we hit Geneva, my legs were burning and I was hungry enough to eat the back end out of a dead rhino. After we put our bikes away, we ate an insane amount of chocolate, collapsed on the couch and watched Top Gear.

Despite our unpreparedness, it was a great ride. We saw here were amazing views of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva), the Alps and Mont Blanc. Switzerland is very cycle-friendly and we saw tons of other bikers. Cars were considerate and seemed used to cyclists. Unlike cycling in North and South Carolina, we weren’t honked at a single time! Indiscriminate honking is frowned upon here as it may disturb others, definitely a cultural difference.