Chinese team unveils cup challenge
GENEVA, Switzerland -- A Chinese investor has announced a pioneering 32 million euro ($42m) bid to challenge for sailing's most prestigious trophy, the America's Cup.
"China Team" is joining forces with French outfit Le Defi for the 2007 event, Wang Chaoyong, chief executive of a Beijing-based investment company said.
The joint venture will "create a vehicle to prepare ourselves to join the ranks of the America's Cup challengers," Wang added on Tuesday in Geneva.
Xavier de Lesquen, who led Le Defi's unsuccesful challenge for the last two editions of sport's oldest trophy in 2000 and 2003, said he hoped to join the formal list of challengers with China Team by the deadline of April 29.
The French sailor said the Swiss holder Alinghi's success in building a team from scratch with the help of foreign crew -- mainly from New Zealand and Germany -- had shown a new path for entering the costly, high tech regatta.
"That's exactly what we want to do today through the creation of this new association of China with an existing team," he said.
De Lesquen, who will be the co-director with Wang, said the team was budgeting about 32 million euros for the bid.
The bid will be based in Qingdao, the site for the sailing events at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
China Team has its sights set beyond the 2007 Cup by aiming to train a small pool of emerging Chinese sports sailors and harness local engineering and design competence.
"The most important thing is to be in there," Wang said. "We would like to see a good result, but we want to build a good platform and play up Chinese talents."
Eight teams have so far formally lodged challenges against holders Alinghi for the 2007 America's Cup, which is scheduled to take place in Valencia, Spain.
They are BMW-Oracle from the United States, Team New Zealand, Team Shosholoza of South Africa, +39 Challenge and Luna Rossa from Italy, Sweden's Victory, K-Challenge from France and Spain's El Reto.
The announcement of a forthcoming Chinese challenge, at the base of the trophy holders in Switzerland, was backed by Michel Bonnefous, manager of the 2007 America's Cup.
"We are excited about the possibility of a strong Chinese project."
"This is a positive step and one which corresponds to our desire for further development of the Cup throughout the world. The values of the America's Cup are not just western, they are above all global," he added.
Bonnefous explained that a bid could generate interest in the event in China, opening up a huge new market for televising the 154 year-old event even if it just attracts a fraction of China's increasingly wealthy elite.
