2023-12-27 11:47:14
The 37th America’s Cup has started and France is in the running. While everyone congratulates the French victory for the 2030 Winter Olympics or talks about the Super League or the Paris Games, too little is mentioned about the French challenge, the Orient Express Team Racing.
Jean-Baptiste Guégan is a member of the Sport Business Observatory, consultant in Geopolitics of sport, teacher, author and speaker.
The team led by Stephan Kandler and Bruno Dubois was in Jeddah where the events of the second preliminary regatta took place at the end of November. After Saudi Arabia, Quentin Delapierre’s French crew then went to Dubai at the beginning of December for the sixth stage of season 4 of the Sail GP circuit. If the results are not yet completely there, this series of oppositions is a prelude to the big confrontation of autumn 2024. The French challenge spawns with the favorites and is measured at the highest level with a view to a America’s Cup which promises to be as exciting as it is historic.
Driven by Quentin Delapierre and Kevin Peponnet, the French challenger deserves greater exposure than that which it currently benefits from. It is currently built around an AC40, an impressive flying boat. Seeing it evolve reminds us of the profound technological changes in competitive sailing over the past thirty years. The America’s Cup has nothing to do with it and it will still be a highlight of the current revolution. A true concentrate of cutting-edge technologies, the Orient Express Team Racing participates in its own way and goes further. It represents more than a competition boat or the desire to participate in the greatest nautical race in the world.
In the company of President Emmanuel Macron. Sidonie Folco
Behind each side of the crew, it is French sport and tricolor sailing that shine. After receiving the high patronage of Emmanuel Macron, the tricolor challenge stands out as a vector of the France brand and its know-how. And that’s why we should talk about it more: Orient Express Team Racing is more than a sailing team or a collective of enthusiasts. This is proof of the competitiveness of the entire national nautical industry. An element and an asset of our nation branding.
At each regatta of the AC40 and soon the French AC75, it is the French capacity for technological innovation that shines and confronts the rest of the world, hoping for results that crown the ambitious technological choices made. The tricolor podium, against all expectations, during the preliminary regattas in Vilanova in September, showed the potential of the challenge and validates for the moment the model of the French outsiders. But the competition is tough and there is no shortage of difficulties. In this 37th America’s Cup, the French challenge faces challengers who all dream of beating Team New Zealand, the New Zealand holder of the Cup: the Swiss Alinghi, the Italian team Luna Rossa, the team Ineos Britannia or the American Magic Team.
The competition promises to be formidable and exciting. This is also why we need to talk aboutOrient Express Team Racing. Because it is the challenge of an ambition, that of a France which is winning. And if history began to be written particularly in Saudi Arabia, it is not for nothing.
Sailing and the America’s Cup, a new Saudi horizon
During the America’s Cup Preliminary Regattas, Saudi Arabia showed another side of its sporting strategy, a little-known face, far from football, heavyweight boxing or car racing. In Jeddah, it’s competitive sailing high-tech which served as a showcase for the Saudi regime’s communication. After the Beach Games which ended at NEOM, the country of Saud now looks at the sea differently. As part of its Vision 2030 project, the arrival of the AC40 and AC75 fleet is not insignificant.
The America’s Cup. Alexander Champy-McLean
On the Saudi shores of the Red Sea, the Challenger fleet did not only compete for favorite status. It served other interests. Between place branding and national branding, the arrival of the America’s Cup boats aims for several things. Developing the attractiveness and influence of the western facade of Saudi Arabia is a first point. Modernizing the representations we have of it is another. After the stars of football and Formula 1, it is now up to the sails of the fleet to reveal the unknown attractions of Jeddah. Nothing like the America’s Cup challengers to offer beautiful images and nourish Saudi storytelling.
Indeed, in their own way, they served the projects of Mohammed Ben Salman, the crown prince. The ships that raced broadcast an unexpected and very rewarding image of Jeddah, the city located on the shores of the Red Sea. The country of Saud won all the way.
The opportunity, moreover, was too good. The passage of America’s Cup crews and their support are part of a useful policy for an oil country that is among the most polluting on the planet. Becoming a player in global boating allows you to tell a great story while cleaning up your image to better green it. If, in addition, we reach the elites of the whole world with a fascinating story, why deprive ourselves?
With the biggest race in history in its waters, Mohammed ben Salman, the crown prince, has made a remarkable entry into a particularly closed and elite universe that makes the whole world dream. Greenwashing, sport washing, territorial marketing, nation branding…, you have the choice. All boxes are checked by default. On the peninsula, the boundary between sport and geopolitics has long been crossed.
By investing in sailing and its most emblematic competition, Saudi Arabia has also struck a double blow. If it made us forget for a time its status as an oil producing country, it mainly took advantage of the effect of COP 28 which is taking place in its neighbor the Emirates to present an image of nature and excellence. A challenge made possible by a formidable ambush marketing strategy and which has the merit of a certain opportunism.
With the promotion of NEOM and the Syndalah Marina, this was to be expected: the geopolitical use of sport is no longer limited to a matter of cars, boxers or balloons, it now concerns sailors.
The America’s Cup in Jeddah was one of the first episodes of an unfolding saga and France played an interesting role to follow. By relying on the support of the President of the Republic on the occasion of COP 28, the French challenger took the opportunity to present itself as an innovation laboratory for the decarbonization of maritime, a global issue which will not be missed of interest beyond Saudi Arabia.
The French challenge, the Orient Express Team Racing. Martin Keruzoré
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