America's Cup: The dream is over: Ainslie beaten, Kiwis fly into the final

The British daily newspaper "The Telegraph" mourned the elimination of its America's Cup team Land Rover BAR with the headline "Sir Ben Ainslie's American dream is over", while the "New Zealand Herald" celebrated its victorious Emirates Team New Zealand with "Smoked on the water - TNZ in the final!". The ratings of these two semi-finalists in the Challenger Playoffs were as different as their performances. On their last day of sailing in the 35th America's Cup, the English were able to record a fighting victory with an impressive performance and exemplary match racing skills, but in the end they were powerless against the outstanding New Zealand team with its 26-year-old helmsman Peter Burling. The dream of the beautiful English fairytale in which the knight brings the treasure back to his queen is over. The Kiwis simply flew faster. And Ainslie proved to be a fair loser: "We congratulate them and wish them luck. They made aggressive design decisions: The wheel riders, the foils and also the setup of the boat. We take our hats off to the Kiwi engineering."

The last press conference with Sir Ben Ainslie, who reviews his first own Cup campaign. Plus the three helmsmen who are still in the game

Sir Ben Ainslie's team is eliminated in the semi-finals of the challenger round with a score of 2:5. It was a sad day for the British team, who had originally been considered one of the favourites. Sir Ben Ainslie took the defeat in his stride. Only now and again did his brown eyes wander vacantly into the distance. Again and again, he praised his team, who had completed the steepest learning curve as newcomers. Thursday's exit did not come as a shock - it had been a long time coming. Even in the training sessions, the British team appeared slow at times. The first experts had their doubts, but the team tried to dispel them. Ainslie countered and said: "We are the team that can push the hardest." That may even be true, but the gap was too big from the start and the New Zealanders chose the British as their opponents for a reason. They certainly didn't want to wait for Sir Ainslie and his men to become dangerous after all. The New Zealanders had chosen the most successful Olympic sailor in sporting history and his 100-strong team with a dream budget as their semi-final opponents when they were not yet on a par. The second race on Thursday offered a mirror of this situation, in which the New Zealanders crossed the start line almost 30 seconds after the British due to technical problems, but in the end beat them to the finish line by 31 seconds. It was a humiliation for the Brits, who fought valiantly but with blunt swords.

Neither the spectacular capsize on Tuesday evening nor the technical failure of the port foil in the second duel against the British on Thursday could shake the dominance of the New Zealanders. "We're Kiwis, we just stick together even tighter when we have setbacks," said Burling. Team boss Grant Dalton's crew have put on a first-class show of force so far, even prompting Ainslie to say: "I think they have a good chance of winning the America's Cup."

"That's the goal," said the young New Zealand 49er Olympic champion Burling, who, in addition to the usual thanks to his team, repeatedly emphasised on the evening after the races that the early victory over Team Land Rover BAR had given his team a very welcome day of rest and that the main thing they wanted to do on Friday was "watch the battle between Artemis Racing and SoftBank Team Japan". The winner of this second semi-final encounter will be Emirates Team New Zealand's opponent in the final of the Challenger Playoffs. A thorough study of the two teams is therefore a must for the high and fast-flying Kiwis.

The fact that the encounter between the Scandinavians and the "Barker Boys" flying the Japanese flag will go into extra time on Friday at 7pm German time was forced by the Swedes on Thursday with three wins in a row. They started the third day of racing in the semi-final at 1-3, but were then able to confidently and successfully play to their well-known strengths in medium winds like a good poker hand. The duels were exciting because the Swedes and the Japanese were largely on an equal footing. The Japanese lost the first duel due to a very close early start, which left them 39 seconds behind at the finish. "One mistake decided the race here," said Jochen Schümann, who commented on the full race programme as co-commentator on Sky Sport on his 63rd birthday. In round two, Artemis Racing with helmsman Nathan Outteridge and tactician Iain Percy even managed a start-to-finish victory.

Things went differently in the third race: at first it looked like an unlucky start for the Japanese, but Barker freed himself from his weak position behind the Swedes in the final seconds, crossed the start line almost at the same time as them and maintained their rapid pace. With excellent match race tactics, SoftBank Team Japan took the lead at the first mark after the opening sprint. The head-to-head race was decided by a penalty against the Japanese, who, according to the referee's decision, did not give the Swedes enough room when rounding a mark. Artemis helmsman Nathan Outteridge later freely admitted that his team had set themselves up for this situation and had trained intensively for it time and time again. They had studied many similar situations on video footage." Nevertheless, the move was a bold one, as the Swedes had been awarded a penalty in their clash with the New Zealanders in the preliminary round, which the referees subsequently admitted was a mistake.

The showdown between Artemis and SoftBank Team Japan promises to be very exciting on Friday, with the Scandinavians winning 4:3. But regardless of which of the two teams comes out on top, Emirates Team New Zealand remain the top favourites for the final of the challengers from 10 June (Saturday). And the Brits will remain in the Cup in any case. On the evening of his defeat, Sir Ben Ainslie was proud to announce that important partners such as Land Rover BAR and 11th Hour Racing as well as other sponsors had signed up for the follow-up campaign on the day of his retirement. "We'll be back and we'll be much stronger," promised the 40-year-old cup chaser, who was unable to achieve his goal this time, but - otherwise he wouldn't be Sir Ben Ainslie - immediately set his sights on it again.

Shortly before the British team's elimination, Elaine Bunting conducted an interview for "Yachting World" with Andy Claughton from Land Rover BAR about the outcome of the Cup so far. The British company's Chief Technology Officer is surprisingly open and quite critical of the Cup format and also looks back at "Demolition Day" with the capsizing of the Kiwis.

Open and honest, critical and thoughtful: Andy Claughton, the clever mind behind the Land Rover BAR design team, takes stock of the Cup so far.