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Minus two. Or minus three?

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The 34th America's Cup continues to face serious problems. Two French teams announced their withdrawal at the end of February.

Who are we talking about? The first to say no was the syndicate that fielded a team called All4One (Russian fans know it from Audi MedCup races, for example). «On 29th February the head of the team, or as the French call it,», Stéphane Candlet made a statement, which boiled down to the fact that no one has extra money, and the current Cup - just a rubbish.
Stefan stated that the changes to the Cup had been drastic, while the image of the event had been tarnished by the nearly three-year-long legal battle between the Alinghi and Oracle teams. He believes that the organisers will now have to work very hard to convince the leading brands to return to the Cup. He believes apart from Team New Zealand, which has very strong sponsorship from Emirates (as well as government support from New Zealand) there are no new names in the Cup, which dramatically reduces its appeal to viewers and media. Well, finally, the crisis has hit everyone. The Cup model is in need of renewal - that's the conclusion to be drawn from his words.
The uproar over the news has not yet subsided, but unofficially the Aleph team announced the same decision. Marcus Hutchinson, its representative, shared with a news agency the opinion that there would only be three official Cup contenders (those who would participate in the Louis Vuitton Cup for the right to enter the final battle with the defender of the America's Cup proper): Artemis, ETNZ and Luna Rossa. What is clear from this conclusion is that he does not consider his own team (Aleph) to be an official contender. What's more: it is clear that a third French team - the Energy Team led by the Peyron brothers - will not take to the final distance of the Cup (rumours that it too is not doing well with the budget are already in their third month). For the first time in over 40 years France will not be competing in the Cup.

Yes, that's the news, that's the news!All4One and Aleph are cautiously announcing that they want to continue to compete in the America's Cup World Series on AC 45s. But they don't want to continue to the finals (the Cup) with much bigger sailing machines like AC 72 because they have no money, no time to build them. And how many times I told organizers that it's silly to have two different boats! They didn't listen.
Well, and now - take it! From initial expectations of eight or nine
teams, it seems, remains only three crews.

It's unlikely that this was what any of the participants in the 34th Cup was expecting, but it would be absurd to expect something else.

The world of business, as it is known, is a cruel one, and once you screw up another - even if super-popular - competition, its place is immediately taken by something new, and it gradually disappears into thin air.


Will the Cup survive under these difficult conditions? Just as a competition, not as a monument to itself? It is unlikely that anyone today can answer this question accurately.

P.S. When this material was ready, Luik Peyron in fact confirmed the news about Energy Team in his interview to one of the well-known yachting portals, having said verbatim the following We have absolutely no guarantee we will be able to build an AC72. No money, at least not for now

. We think there is no need of translation.
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