{"id":4524,"date":"2012-10-13T14:58:29","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T19:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=4524"},"modified":"2012-10-13T14:58:29","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T19:58:29","slug":"knew-coming-defender-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=4524","title":{"rendered":"WE KNEW IT WAS COMING!   A DEFENDER SERIES"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><\/h1>\n<h1>This has always been the plan, since Ben Ainslie was signed to team Oracle.<\/h1>\n<h1><\/h1>\n<h1>America\u2019s Cup \u201cDefender\u2019s Series\u201d Revealed<\/h1>\n<div>\n<div>October 13, 2012<\/div>\n<p>By\u00a0<a title=\"Posts by mrmojo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mojosail.com\/author\/mrmojo\/\" rel=\"author\">mrmojo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>America\u2019s Cup Principal Race Officer John Craig confirmed Friday that Jimmy Spithill and Ben Ainslie will have to battle it out to see who skippers the defense of the 34th America\u2019s Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Craig said the Defender\u2019s Series will run in tandem with the Louis Vuitton Cup, scheduled for July 4 through September 1, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_12976\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"ac 72 bow on\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mojosail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/ac-72-bow-on.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"588\" height=\"392\" \/>Copyright \u00a9 ORACLE TEAM USA<\/div>\n<p>While it\u2019s been clear from the beginning that Larry Ellison brought Ainslie on board to hold Spithill\u2019s feet to the fire, having a formal Defender\u2019s Series will put two more AC72s on the Bay racing \u2013 something to augment what looks like a three-way race for the Challenger\u2019s spot.<\/p>\n<p>Fans will get to root for Ben or Jimmy, T-shirts will be sold, carbon fiber refrigerator magnets will blossom from a thousand doors, and commerce will rule the waves. Like other major leaque sports, it\u2019s all about running more contests, and depending on how Team Oracle wants to set it up, there could be quite a bit of AC72 face time ahead next year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This has always been the plan, since Ben Ainslie was signed to team Oracle. America\u2019s Cup \u201cDefender\u2019s Series\u201d Revealed October 13, 2012 By\u00a0mrmojo America\u2019s Cup Principal Race Officer John Craig confirmed Friday that Jimmy Spithill and Ben Ainslie will have to battle it out to see who skippers the defense of the 34th America\u2019s Cup. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=4524\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">WE KNEW IT WAS COMING!   A DEFENDER SERIES<\/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-4524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americas-cup-34-2","tag-americas-cup-34"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4524"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4526,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions\/4526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}