American Magic wins both races in Day 4’s Louis Vuitton Cup semi-finals! LR4. AM3!
According to the America’s Cup summary: The Louis Vuitton Cup semi-final races take centre-stage this afternoon with, once again, Alinghi Red Bull Racing and NYYC American Magic standing on the precipice of elimination and with no margin for error. For INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli the race is on! And Day 4 races began.
What great news. Alinghi wins the first race against INEOS.
Alinghi looked great winning race 1 today but then lost the second race to INEOS Britannia. Sadly, the Swiss have been eliminated.
INEOS now enters the Louis Vuitton Cup Final. This is the second consecutive time they have made the Challenger Selection Series Final, the first ‘Louis Vuitton’ Cup Final since 1983.
Luna Rossa vs American Magic. In its first race, the winds fell below 6knots and that worked in the Americans’ favor as American Magic wins the first race. The second race was really tight, the lead going back and forth until Luna Rossa suffered a gear failure abruptly ending the race for them. It was a victory for American Magic. Score now is Luna Rossa 4, American Magic 3.
Tom Slingsby, helmsman of NYYC American Magic, commented “Obviously, it’s never the way you want to win, but by the same token, we were out there giving out our best as well – so you don’t want to discredit the work of our team. Our thoughts are with Luna Rossa – it sucks to lose a race like that – but look, they have still got the lead, and they can come out tomorrow and finish it off – or we can get out there and win.” We’ll see what happens today.
Challenger Standings
What’s Next?
The Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals will continue on Thursday September 19, with American Magic vs Luna Rossa. Stay tuned. The Final for the Louis Vuitton Cup runs Sept 26-Oct 7. The winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup is the first team to score five points and will then face Emirates Team New Zealand in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup. Racing starts at 2.00 pm (14:00 CEST) on race day.
Featured photo/Ian Roman; Alinghi photo/Ricardo Pinto