James Clark

Emirates Team New Zealand

Emirates Team New Zealand, current holders of the America's Cup following a successful campaign in Bermuda in 2017 to win it from the USA and then an equally successful defence in 2021 to retain the Cup. The Team had its beginnings in the New Zealand Challenge team which contested the 1987 America's Cup event, sailed at Fremantle, Western Australia. It has missed only one event since – the 2010 Deed of Gift Challenge between Alinghi and Oracle at Valencia. That makes it the longest-lived team in recent America's Cup history. The team has won the Cup twice – at San Diego in 1995, beating Stars and Stripes 5-0 and at Auckland in 2000, beating Luna Rossa 5-0. In 1995, few New Zealanders would have been unaware of the America's Cup regatta in San Diego and the public watched live television enthralled as their team clinically dismembered first the challengers and then the defender. In a flawless display, an efficient and focused team gave New Zealand a great sense of national pride. Led by Peter Blake a celebrated round-the-world racing yachtsman, with Russell Coutts as skipper, Team New Zealand's triumph was the stuff of New Zealand dreams… beating bigger, better financed teams and beating them well. For New Zealanders, their team and the America's Cup came to typify many of the nation's values – a can-do attitude, teamwork, taking on the big guy, accepting a challenge and striving for excellence.