{"id":6801,"date":"2013-08-15T12:29:59","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T17:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=6801"},"modified":"2013-08-15T12:29:59","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T17:29:59","slug":"sanctions-oracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=6801","title":{"rendered":"MORE SANCTIONS FOR ORACLE?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oracle Team USA could face more sanctions; ETNZ\u2019s Dalton accuses team of cheating<\/a><\/h1>\n
Posted on\u00a0August 13, 2013 at 1:38 pm\u00a0by\u00a0Tom FitzGerald<\/a> in\u00a0America’s Cup<\/a>,\u00a0Emirates Team New Zealand<\/a>,\u00a0Grant Dalton<\/a>,Oracle Racing<\/a>,\u00a0Russell Coutt<\/a>s<\/div>\n
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Oracle Team USA, the defender in the America\u2019s Cup, could be in serious trouble.<\/p>\n

Having already admitted rules violations during the America\u2019s Cup World Series, a warm-up to this year\u2019s regatta, the team has been described by a Cup committee as having made \u201can intentional effort\u2019\u2019 to circumvent the rules.<\/p>\n

And on Tuesday, Oracle\u2019s chief rival directly accused the American team of cheating. \u201cYou can\u2019t actually get to any other point than the fact they were cheating,\u2019\u2019 Emirates Team New Zealand managing director Grant Dalton said in an interview. \u201cI think it\u2019s really serious.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Oracle could wind up forfeiting one or more race wins in the best-of-17 America\u2019s Cup finals, or it could be thrown out of the regatta altogether, an international sailing expert said.<\/p>\n

A five-member international jury \u201ccould dismiss them from the event, which would hand the trophy to the winner of the Louis Vuitton (challengers) Cup,\u2019\u2019 said Bob Fisher, an America\u2019s Cup historian. \u201cStill taking a strong line, they could give the Louis Vuitton Cup winner one or more wins in the America\u2019s Cup finals. It depends on how strongly the jury feels about it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The latest developments add to the troubles of a series plagued by soaring boat costs, a scarcity of challengers, a crash that killed a crew member, intense rules disagreements and one-sided races.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, with the major league baseball season entering the home stretch and the NFL exhibition season in full swing, the Louis Vuitton Cup is \u00a0attracting scant attention in the Bay Area. The finals begin Saturday between Team New Zealand and Italy\u2019s Luna Rossa Challenge.<\/p>\n

Oracle admitted last week its shore members illegally placed weights in the bows of all three of its 45-foot catamarans during the America\u2019s Cup World Series. One of the boats was loaned to a British team.<\/p>\n

In a report to regatta director Iain Murray, the America\u2019s Cup measurement committee said, \u201cThe modifications appear to be an intentional effort to circumvent the limitations of the 45 class rule.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The committee\u2019s report was used as the basis of Murray\u2019s filing a protest to the international jury of the International Sailing Federation. The jury is investigating the violations.<\/p>\n

In disclosing the violations on Thursday, Oracle team chief executive Russell Coutts said a team employee, possibly more than one, added the weights without the knowledge of management. He called the placement \u201ca ridiculous mistake\u2019\u2019 because \u201cit didn\u2019t affect the performance.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Oracle voluntarily forfeited its wins in four ACWS regattas and its two overall season championships.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Dalton disputed Coutts\u2019 contention that the weights didn\u2019t affect the boats\u2019 performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would you actually do it, if it didn\u2019t make a difference?\u2019\u2019 Dalton said. Properly placed extra weight does improve the performance of the boat, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the design (of the 45) you like the weight forward,\u2019\u2019 he said. That\u2019s why \u201cyou put one guy really far forward to keep the bow in the water.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

He called Coutts\u2019 insistence that management didn\u2019t know about the placement of the weights \u201ccomplete nonsense.\u2019\u2019 He said he felt Oracle was trying to \u201csnow\u2019\u2019 people with its explanations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inconceivable,\u2019\u2019 Dalton said, \u201cthat a shore crew member woke up one morning and decided it was a good idea \u2014 that management would think it was a good idea\u00a0 \u2014 that to make the boat faster you would put some weight in the boat, and then you\u2019d come in to work one day and do it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

At Team New Zealand, for example, if someone were to add weights or move them around, the team would run tests to see if it would help performance or not, he said. He didn\u2019t buy the idea that rogue employees committed violations on their own.<\/p>\n

According to the measurement committee, a five-pound combination of lead and resin was found inside the bow strut on one Oracle boat. Bags of lead of roughly the same weight were found in similar positions on the other two boats.<\/p>\n

Dalton said it\u2019s possible that somebody placed several weights in the boats and, in removing them afterward, forgot about the telltale lead and resin. The weights were not discovered during the ACWS because detailed weight testing was not done on the AC45s, all of which were the same design, Murray said last week.<\/p>\n

The violations were not discovered until July 26, when the boats were tested in preparation of the upcoming Red Bull Youth America\u2019s Cup. If it hadn\u2019t been for the youth sailing regatta, the violations probably would not have been discovered at all.<\/p>\n

Asked last week to explain why it took two weeks after the violations were detected to disclose them, Coutts said, \u201cWe had to make sure it actually happened.\u2019\u2019 He did not elaborate.<\/p>\n

Coutts was unavailable for comment Tuesday, a team spokesperson said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be able to comment today,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

Dalton steered clear of accusing Coutts personally. \u201cI can only say that there\u2019s a management failure,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

Stephen Barclay, the American\u2019s Cup chief executive, and Tom Ehman, the Cup director of external affairs, could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Dalton said he didn\u2019t expect the jury to take a long time to reach a decision. \u201cWe have absolute faith that the jury will get to the bottom of it,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

He likened the use of illegal weights to bicyclists using performance enhancing drugs in the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

He was asked why a team would take such a risk in a low-stakes event like the ACWS, far from a pinnacle like the Tour de France. Dalton replied, \u201cI\u2019m the wrong person to ask why. We didn\u2019t do it. That\u2019s a fair question: Why would you cheat? But there is no doubt that they did.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oracle Team USA could face more sanctions; ETNZ\u2019s Dalton accuses team of cheating Posted on\u00a0August 13, 2013 at 1:38 pm\u00a0by\u00a0Tom FitzGerald in\u00a0America’s Cup,\u00a0Emirates Team New Zealand,\u00a0Grant Dalton,Oracle Racing,\u00a0Russell Coutts Oracle Team USA, the defender in the America\u2019s Cup, could be in serious trouble. Having already admitted rules violations during the America\u2019s Cup World Series, a … Continue reading MORE SANCTIONS FOR ORACLE?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[632],"tags":[525],"class_list":["post-6801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americas-cup-34-2","tag-americas-cup-34"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6802,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6801\/revisions\/6802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}