BARCELONA – Italy's Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and Britain's INEOS Britannia are on the verge of advancing in the America's Cup after extending their leads in the semifinals on Sunday.
Both picked up another pair of victories to take commanding 4-0 leads in their first-to-five playoff series against their opponents — Luna Rossa is ahead of NYYC American Magic, while INEOS Britannia is leading Switzerland's Alinghi Red Bull Racing.
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Another victory for each will be enough to put the Italians and the British into the Louis Vuitton Cup final, which will begin on Sept. 26. The winner will challenge defending champion Team Emirates New Zealand in the America’s Cup final in October.
American Magic was still without helmsman Paul Goodison, who broke five ribs when he fell on the boat last week. Lucas Calabrese was skippering in his place across from Tom Slingsby.
“The fact is we’ve made mistakes every single race and we’ve just got to tidy it up, because there’s no place for mistakes anymore, we’re match-point down but I’ve personally seen how quickly these things can change, so I’m confident in our team,” Slingsby said.
Luna Rossa swept the Americans 4-0 at this stage in the 2021 America’s Cup in Auckland. The Italians then dispatched the British in the challenger final.
“We’re just taking one race at a time whether we’re four up or four down," Luna Rossa helmsman Jimmy Spithill said. "It’s really the same process, same preparation, we’re two very evenly matched teams. You see that on the racetrack where there’s just little things here and there that are going to make the difference.”
INEOS Britannia, which finished as the highest-scoring team in the opening round-robin, picked the Swiss for their semifinal. Alinghi had barely avoided elimination in the round-robin.
The two boats nearly collided before the start of one of their races on Sunday.
“I thought at one point we might have been going onboard the Swiss boat, but thankfully we managed to keep the boats apart and the guys did a great job keeping the boat up on the foils," INEOS Britannia skipper Ben Ainslie said. “We managed to get ahead and sail a nice race, but it certainly gave us some action. We are really pleased with our performance but there’s still things we can improve on and we are working really hard to try and get one more win to make sure we are in that final.”
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