D’Arcy Waldegrave: Team NZ’s Am Cup decision a slap in the face to Kiwis – New Zealand Herald

PM Jacinda Ardern was 'disappointed' with the move of the America's Cup offshore while Auckland Mayor Phil Goff revealed more details about what will happen to the former team base locations. Video / NZ Herald / Getty Images

OPINION:

The America's Cup, which became New Zealand's Cup, is now Catalonia's Cup.

The love affair is over. We knew the passion had cooled, we were aware that one foot was already out the door, it was always coming to an end, but it doesn't make it any less painful.

Hubris, greed or the cold hard light of day - it matters not how or why this long-standing, all-consuming and tempestuous affair has taken its last breath, we just know it has.

Like all jilted lovers, Kiwi sports fans are left grasping for reason, desperate to understand how such a beautiful relationship could end like this. There is no doubt that during those halcyon days, overpowering heights were reached. Such heights could not possibly be achieved again, but that never stopped the desire to do so.

The lure of the green grass in the end was too much to overlook, the team could no longer justify staying and had to pursue the money. A long-distance relationship would be untenable.

New Zealand won't take this well, nor should we. The nationalism the team fed off for so many years is no longer relevant. The connection that encouraged government after government to bankroll the exercise in 'mouse versus lion' is no longer apparent.

The America's Cup has now reached such financially bloated and obscene proportions, there is no place for a plucky and underfunded group. Billionaires and Formula 1 collaborations all now with a timezone friendly platform in a European glamour region, give New Zealand little or no chance of retaining the Cup.

In the unlikely event they do so, what chance of it returning to our shores for a defence? Based on the accelerating cost, short of the largesse of a multi-billionaire local (looking at you Graham Hart), the only way of securing the required finance will be to auction the event off again to the highest northern-hemisphere bidder.

After Team New Zealand's Will Smithing of the government's Chris Rock, it'll be a cold day in hell if the public cheque book is opened again.

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I don't wish ill on the team. The sailors themselves will always elicit a warm glow as they strive to board and scuttle their rivals. I expect, as is the norm, when the hostilities commence in Catalonia, there will some swelling of national pride and the media will dutifully report the massacre.

This event is never coming 'home'.

I would rather have borne witness as New Zealand fought and died on its feet in front of its loyal fans, as opposed to being beheaded on its knees in a foreign clime.

The relationship is over.

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D'Arcy Waldegrave: Team NZ's Am Cup decision a slap in the face to Kiwis - New Zealand Herald