When Commodore John Cox Stevens, a member of the newly minted New York Yacht Club, skippered the good ship America to a resounding victory in the first America's Cup, he had little idea of the sporting legacy he was creating.
That one-off race took place in 1851, and involved the circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight, a smallish island off England's southern coast. Stevens returned home to the United States with the spoils of victory, an ornate water pitcher made of sterling silver. It was to remain in New York until 1983, when Alan Bond's Australia II finally broke America's stranglehold.
In the race’s most recent iteration four years ago in San Francisco, Oracle Team USA, financed by the technology billionaire Larry Ellison, defeated Emirates Team New Zealand, backed by the Dubai airline.
Now the race switches to the waters off America’s east coast and, for the first time since the inaugural event, to another smallish island with a surfeit of maritime history: Bermuda, which beat San Francisco, Chicago and San Diego to secure the right to host this year’s cup.
Qualifying races begin on May 26; the winner of that round will start competing against the Oracle crew on June 17. The challenger will come from one of six nations including Britain, Japan and New Zealand, with the latter’s entrant again being backed by Emirates.
It’s hard to overestimate the impact it will have on Bermuda’s small but super-wealthy economy. Sponsors are festooning a sporting occasion tailor-made for the rarefied world of high-end branding. This year’s event will be “presented” by Louis Vuitton and backed by an army of supporting marques, ranging from BMW to Oracle. Other sponsors include Sperry, a US-based maker of deck shoes, professional services company PwC and two watchmakers, Italy’s Panerai and Britain’s Bremont, as well as Hamilton-based Appleby Global, which provides offshore legal services.
America’s Cup is not like the Super Bowl or the Fifa World Cup, affairs that become the focal point of the sporting world for hours and sometimes weeks at a time. The Bremont co-founder Nick English describes it as “one of those unusual sporting occasions which you either know about or you don’t”.
Every race attracts a new generation of admirers, drawn as much by the picture-perfect setting (this year's event will take place in Bermuda's Great Sound) as by the sight of two elite teams fighting for supremacy on unusual terrain. Those who fall in love with the spirit of the cup always remember their first time, be it the media titan Ted Turner's victory with Courageous in 1977, or a team from landlocked Switzerland winning in Alinghi in 2003.
Then there is the battle-within-the-battle, the hidden and bitterly competitive pursuit of marginal gains, any of which could land you the title, or push you into second place. America’s Cup races have long been tussles where brain (as well as financing) regularly out-competes brawn. The earliest participants fought it out on wooden schooners, which later gave way to iron, aluminium and finally fibreglass hulls. Every winner gets to choose the shape and design of the boats that compete in the next race. Mr Ellison elected to abandon single-hulled boats and make the 34th running of the event in 2013 a shootout between two wing-sail catamarans, a decision that heartened some while dividing purists.
Whoever wins this year’s America’s Cup, the event is likely to prove a major boon to Bermuda’s economy. The Royal Naval Dockyard, which will host the Event Village, has been renovated to accommodate an influx of sponsors, spectators, journalists and VIPs. Many of the dockyard buildings, dating back to the 1850s, have been restored and will be used by the teams and the America’s Cup Event Authority.
This year’s America’s Cup is a chance for a small island in the North Atlantic to parade itself before the world. Ross Webber, the chief executive of the Bermuda Business Development Agency, sees it as a “milestone in Bermuda’s evolution”, a chance for the wealthy and well-travelled to see its pristine waters and friendly regulatory environment first-hand.
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
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MATCH INFO
What: 2006 World Cup quarter-final
When: July 1
Where: Gelsenkirchen Stadium, Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Result:
England 0 Portugal 0
(Portugal win 3-1 on penalties)
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
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Rating: 4.5/5
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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
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- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
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Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
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Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
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Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
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Saturday, November 24
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Scotland 14-9 Argentina
England 37-18 Australia
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More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
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Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
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Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech
# of staff: 10
Funding to date: Self-funded
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Date started: February 2017
Founders: Amira Rashad (CEO), Yusuf Saber (CTO), Mahmoud Sayedahmed (adviser), Reda Bouraoui (adviser)
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: E-commerce
Size: 50 employees
Funding: approximately $6m
Investors: Beco Capital, Enabling Future and Wain in the UAE; China's MSA Capital; 500 Startups; Faith Capital and Savour Ventures in Kuwait
Company%20Profile
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Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
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Kohli (c), Rohit, Dhawan, Rayudu, Pandey, Dhoni (wk), Pant, Jadeja, Chahal, Kuldeep, Khaleel, Shami, Thakur, Rahul.
Company%20profile
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