Sport
16 2GS Saturday July 18 2020 | the times
Cal Crutchlow has been through the
mill. Last year he broke his ankle in 17
places and came back with a kilogram
of metal in his leg. That added to the old
operations on his arms, the arthritis in
his shoulders and constant pain in his
braking finger. “I am worn,” he says on
the eve of the MotoGP season “but I’m
not worn out.”
To make matters worse Honda chose
the preamble to the delayed and trun-
cated Europe-only season at the Span-
ish Grand Prix in Jerez to confirm that
Crutchlow was leaving in 2021, though
it was no surprise to him. You cannot
help but feel that the 34-year-old is
exterior. It was the longest time
Ainslie had been off water since he
was eight years old.
“The first time out the sensation of
the water rippling on the hull of the
boat, that recognition, was a powerful
moment,” he says. “I hadn’t realised
how much I missed it.”
A young daughter, Bellatrix, some
newly bought chickens and, as withmany sports’ fanatics, The Last Dance
Netflix series about Michael Jordan
helped to keep him occupied.
The basketball legend’s intensity
and uncompromising brilliance struck
a chord with Ainslie from his dinghy
days as a ruthless winner, but it was
Phil Jackson’s wisdom as coach that
jumped out now that he is a team
leader. “I thought probably one of thepeople getting too close,”
Ainslie says. “We could use it
on the boat or at the coffee
machine.”
The necessary pause of
lockdown was not easy
for a man who hides
ferocious
competitiveness
behind a composedOn a day of gentle breeze on the
Solent there is something magical
about watching a 6½-tonne boat skim
over the waves at more than 30mph.
It is where sailing meets astonishing
high-speed levitation.
Aerodynamics, aquadynamics,
hydrofoils and engineering
brainpower (and more than £8 million
of construction) all make it possible
for Britannia to soar out of the water,
travelling three times faster than the
wind while balancing on just a rudder
and a spider’s arm sticking out of one
side — a wing-like carbon foil arm
that lifts the hull as soon as the boat
hits sufficient speed.
Amateur sailors come as close as
they dare for a gawp as this carbon
flying machine waits for a gap
between the tankers and cargo ships
to take off. On our speedboat, the
driver puts down the throttle,
bouncing over waves trying to keep
up as Britannia’s hull barely touches
the sea.
Is it a boat? Is it a plane? For Sir
Ben Ainslie it is serious work. The
task is to achieve Great Britain’s first
victory in the America’s Cup in 2021
and while Covid-19 has thrown many
plans in the air, the slogan of Ineos
Team UK remains unchanged.
#Thereisnosecond does not leave
much room for error.
Ainslie’s team covered more than
150 miles in one sailing day last week.
This training session is much shorter
but still a major operation, with the
AC75 foiling monohull towed out into
the Solent by one of three stand-by
rigid inflatable boats.
At one point a check is necessary
on the rudder so one of the team’s
divers, a former Special Boat Service
soldier trained in combat swimming,
is sent down in scuba kit to take a
look.
Looking like fighter pilots with their
helmets, goggles and microphones,
dozens of staff are at work either
operating the drone that follows the
boat, checking communications,
analysing the wind or studying the
boat’s many sensors via laptops.
Staff monitor all of this on screens
back at the headquarters in
‘Mechanics of this boat make
Portsmouth harbour and can observe
the muscle of the grinders, the careful
input of the wing-trimmers or in
Ainslie’s case, the colossal experience
of five Olympic sailing medals (four
gold) and involvement in three
previous America’s Cup events,
including the painful defeat four years
ago as skipper.
Recent months have also required
Ainslie to make decisions he could
never have anticipated to keep more
than 100 staff safe from Covid-
while building a new race boat,
Britannia 2, in a yard near Portsmouth
and working out how best to prepare
for an event on the other side of the
world, in Auckland, New Zealand.
Races were inevitably cancelled this
summer which means that the four
teams for the 36th America’s Cup —
Emirates Team New Zealand, Luna
Ross Prada Pirelli Team from Italy,
American Magic and Team Ineos UK
— will meet for the first time in
December, just before the challenger
series in January and February to
decide which one of three contenders
will face New Zealand, hosts and
holders, in the climax in March.
“It is going to make the cup more
interesting,” Ainslie says, of the
condensed time. He is not expecting a
game-changing advantage for any
crew like New Zealand’s use of
“cyclors” in Bermuda in 2017 — with
grinders on bikes to use leg-power
rather than arms — but the switch of
class from catamarans to monohulls
capable of up to 50 knots [about
57mph] means that all the teams are
regularly spying on one another to
check progress.
“Just the mechanics of sailing the
boat, the processes we’re going
through now, it’s a really hard boat to
sail,” Ainslie says. “You’ve only got
one foil in the water and the rudder
so that balance is more difficult to get
that stability.”
Through a partnership with
Mercedes Formula One team,
they have been looking at the
sensors that measure
contact with kerbs and how
that is transferable. “There
will be big changes from
our first boat to the
second,” he says.
At least now they can
use the full 11-man crew.
For a while, social
distancing meant
reduced
numbers.
“We had
this device
to monitorOlympic star Ben Ainslie
tells Matt Dickinson
about his plans to
win America’s Cup
on ‘flying machine’
Team Ineos's ‘flying machine’ is the result of about £120 million of investment with Ainslie, left, skippering an 11-The rudder is always in the
water and helps to balance
the boat depending on
which of the two foils is in
action. That is because the
rudder also has a foil and is
used to steer. As the boat
changes direction it moves
from one foil to the otherThe rudder
Crutchlow: Honda axe won’t stop me
MotoGP
Rick Broadbent
underappreciated, by Honda and the
hordes. In 2016 he ended a 532-race
lean spell for British riders by winning
the Czech Grand Prix, the first success
since Barry Sheene in Sweden in 1981.
The man from Coventry, the Isle of
Man and San Diego (for the lockdown)
backed it up with two more, in Australia
later that season and Argentina in 2018.
He name-checks some of the world
champions he has competed against as
he assesses his era — Valentino Rossi,
Marc Márquez, Jorge Lorenzo and
Nicky Hayden. “I beat them all at cer-
tain points,” he says. “And now the kids
are coming up and they’re even faster.
“My physical peak was probably a
couple of years ago but I’ve kept in good
shape. I was on the podium in the last
race I finished [second in Australia lastyear] and I’m more motivated than ev-
er. This [the end of his Honda deal] is
not a shock. I’m very positive that I will
still be in MotoGP next year.”
Crutchlow has covered a staggering
17,000 kilometres on his bicycle since
January 1 and although he has spent
seven hours a day in the saddle in
California, Crutchlow had not sat on a
motorbike until last week. “I don’t feel I
benefit from riding other [motor]
bikes,” he says. “It doesn’t make me
stronger when it comes to a MotoGP
bike. Yes, it will be a bit of a shock to the
system but it will come back fast.”
It did and Crutchlow was third in
the opening practice session yesterday
behind Márquez, the six-times world
champion from Spain, and Maverick
Viñales.Lord Coe has finally been elected as a
member of the IOC after being turned
down several times owing to a potential
conflict of interest.
Coe, the president of World Athlet-
ics, was blocked from membership in
December over a conflict of interest but
he has changed his position at his sports
marketing company from executive
chairman to a more passive role as
non-executive chairman.
Coe’s belated entry into the IOC, the
elite body of about 100 royals and sports
leaders who determine Olympic host
cities and events, is significant because
he has often been mentioned as aAthletics
Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports ReporterCoe finally gets Olympic vote
potential future president of the
Olympic movement — though the
63-year-old has previously insisted that
he has no such ambitions. “Thank you
to all of you who voted for our sport, our
federation today,” said Coe, the 1,500m
gold medal-winner at the 1980 and 1984
Olympics.
“I look forward, our whole sport
looks forward, to working even more
closely with all of you in performing
and building upon all sports because at
this time, of all times, the need for com-
munity in elite sport to thrive and flour-
ish is probably never more important.”
Coe’s two fellow Britons on the IOC
are Princess Anne, who has sat on the
committee since 1988, and Sir Craig
Reedie, the former president of the
World Anti-Doping Agency.