America's Cup: America's Cup in the media review: "The shark at the wheel"

With the 2:0 win for the Swiss syndicate Alinghi, it's done: German daily newspapers discover sailing. "Schümann reaches for the America's Cup" summarises the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" and predicts "the European triumph is drawing ever closer".

Articles about the America's Cup in Auckland, New Zealand, in the sports section of many newspapers, some of which lasted for pages, turned Bundesliga football into a side note today. "Die Welt" described Alinghi skipper Russell Coutts as a "shark at the helm" in its title headline due to his biting sailing style. In total, the Springer newspaper devoted half a page of its sports coverage to the most important sailing regatta.

The respected daily newspaper "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" describes Russell Coutts' crew as the "sailing champions of the hour under the Swiss flag". Sailing dominated the Swiss newspaper's reporting with a whole page devoted to the sport.

The "Hamburger Abendblatt" judged yesterday's race, saying that the Swiss team had broken the hearts of the New Zealanders with their second victory. All newspapers agree in their judgement: "The master defeats the apprentice".

The America's Cup was also a major topic on television. In addition to the live broadcast (from 1.30 a.m. to 5.30 a.m.), ARD repeatedly showed summaries throughout the afternoon. Eurosport also showed a detailed one-hour summary (8.30 pm).

ZDF gave the sailing event a quarter of an hour in the middle of its winter sports broadcasts, and RTL also made the America's Cup the subject of its news programme.