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Alinghi facts

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AUCKLAND, New Zealand (Reuters) -- With a large budget and Olympic champion Jochen Schuemann running the sailing team, this syndicate from landlocked Switzerland started the long America's Cup challengers' series as clear favourites and went on to dominate the series.

The team is backed by Swiss biotechnology billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli, who rocked the America's Cup world in 2000 when he lured victorious Team New Zealand skipper Russell Coutts and tactician Brad Butterworth to his new challenge.

PROGRESS

Alinghi was clearly the best team in the challengers' series, finishing two qualifying round robins as the leading team among the nine challengers after winning 13 of its 16 races.

It was then unbeaten in the first two knockout stages of the challengers' regatta.

Alinghi beat defending Louis Vuitton Cup challengers' champions Prada 4-0 in the quarter-finals and crushed U.S. software billionaire Larry Ellison's Oracle BMW Racing 4-0 in the semi-finals to become the first team to reach the challengers' final.

Alinghi then beat Oracle again, 5-1, in the challengers' final.

TEAM

Coutts and Butterworth are the nucleus of the team, who rely heavily on local knowledge and experience. Coutts and Butterworth led Team New Zealand to its 1995 America's Cup win and then its successful defence in 2000.

Coutts is an Olympic champion and won the world match-racing title in 1992, 1993 and 1996.

Schuemann, winner of three Olympic gold medals, is Coutts's back-up helmsman and the team strategist.

Tactician Butterworth has been involved in the past four America's Cups and won the 1989-90 Whitbread round-the-world race with the late Sir Peter Blake.

Bertarelli is Alinghi's navigator and won the 12-metre class and Farr-40 class world championships in 2001.

Alinghi represents Societe Nautique de Geneve and has two boats -- SUI-64 and SUI-75. It will use SUI-64, the yacht it has used throughout the regatta, in the America's Cup.

Alinghi's budget is estimated at $55 million and its principal boat designer is Grant Simmer.

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