Winner to Race for the America's Cup Against Team New Zealand
The 2002/03 Louis Vuitton Cup regatta format will be significantly different from previous events. Although the event is still a match race regatta, a different path through the series exists for boats with early success. After two round robins, held fairly close together in October 2002, the top eight boats are retained and are split into two groups ranked 1-4 and 5-8. The four teams in the first group pair up after a draw and race each other in the quarter-finals in a best of seven match, the winners of each pairing qualify directly for the semi-finals, the losers going to a repechage round. The second four teams race each other in a similar pair of quarter-final best of seven matches, the two losers being eliminated from the Louis Vuitton Cup and the two winners go forward to meet the two losers from the first group in the repechage round. Here again the two pairs race a best of seven series, the two winners qualifying to make up the third and fourth teams in the semi-finals, the two losers being eliminated.
The two winners from the top group in the Quarter-Finals race each other in a best of seven series again and the winner of this pair becomes the first finalist. The two teams coming from the quarter finals repechage also race each other in a best of seven series, the loser is eliminated and the winner goes to the Semi-Finals repechage. Here the loser from the top group and winner from the bottom group race each other in a best of seven to determine the second finalist.
The Louis Vuitton Cup Finals, a best of nine event will determine who the ultimate challenger will be. This system, although with some disadvantages, has been adopted to allow the teams that shine early to concentrate on racing against other strong teams, while still allowing teams with less success early to survive to further rounds if they improve their performance.
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Key Dates OneWorld Challenge Other Challengers visit website The America's Cup |