October 11, 1999. Copyright 1999, Graphic News. All rights reserved

NEW ZEALAND Ð SMALLEST NATION TO DEFEND CUP
By former New Zealand Herald journalist Margot Nesdale

LONDON, October 11, Graphic News: WHEN Team New Zealand pummelled the world's yachting glitterati in 1995 and took the America's Cup down under it was only the second time the Holy Grail had left American shores.
The Cup is the oldest trophy in sporting history but only the Kiwis and the Aussies have been clever enough to break the YankeesÕ stranglehold on the Auld Mug.
The 132oz (3.7kg) silver cup was designed in 1848 by Royal jeweller Robert Garrard of London and was originally part of the Royal Yacht Squadron's trophy collection on the Isle of Wight. In 1851 a syndicate of wealthy New Yorkers commissioned a sleek new yacht, the America, to take on the best of the British fleet in a race around the island. The America left the opposition for dead and her owners took the trophy across the Atlantic. After that it became known as the America's Cup.
The owners and the New York Yacht Club later fought off an incredible 25 challenges and kept a vice-like grip on the cup for 132 years. But in 1983, Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond ended the longest monopoly in sporting history with his controversial wing-keeled wonder-yacht, Australia II. Representing the Royal Perth Yacht Club at Newport, Rhode Island, he beat Dennis Conner's Liberty 4-3, an historic victory Conner would never live down.
New Zealand's interest in the Cup accelerated after Bond's momentous win because they desperately wanted to capture the trophy from their old sporting rivals. However Conner was on a face-saving mission and avenged himself when Stars & Stripes thrashed the Aussies' Kookaburra III by a 4-0 margin in Freemantle in 1986-87. The Cup returned to the USA, but this time to the San Diego Yacht Club, where it stayed for the next eight years. The tide was about to turn again. Team NZ's Black Magic thrashed Conner's Young America in San Diego in 1995 with a 5-0 score, and the Cup returned to the southern hemisphere. Two years later it was attacked by a Maori activist in Auckland, who entered the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron wielding a sledgehammer. However it was restored, free of charge, by Garrards and will be heavily guarded until a successful challenger can prize it from New ZealandÕs grasp.
/ENDS.

Sources: www.americascup.org.nz, The Road to America's Cup 2000