Will it be decided in the courts? - it's now 8-6:
But the whispers around the waterfront...
Too many idiotic journalists fabricating stuff for attention.
The protocol, which Oracle wrote, made the International Jury the highest body - unlike previous cups where the NY supreme court was. It says:
15.14. A Competitor shall not resort to any court or tribunal where the Jury has jurisdiction.
To try and go back on that with regards to the guilty finding would put Oracle in the position where no-one would trust them again and it would also probably open the gates for the currently non-public interviews and evidence of the case to probably become public - stuff which the International Jury has clearly implied would be bad for Oracle. The avenues for doing so include claiming improper process or clear corruption. I think Oracle will have a hard time convincing the supreme court to hear the case and, even then, the only issue is the penalties. Looking at previous cases of cheating in one-design racing they are not remotely harsh.
That has always appeared a possibility after Oracle copped unprecedented penalties from the international jury in the wake of the cheating they were convicted of on the eve of their contest against the Kiwis...
The penalties were not really unprecedented because of how harsh they were - they're not - but that there has never been such a comprehensive and repeated case of cheating in a one-design series.
The International Jury said if it wasn't for it coming on the eve of the cup the punishments would have been much harsher. And remember, the fact that cheating occurred is not in dispute - Oracle has admitted it - it's
who knew about it, who did it. In that respect Oracle got off very lightly because there was so little time before the regatta was due to begin to carry out further investigations. Oracle are just annoyed with the punishments which, other than the 2 point penalty, are about as severe as slapping someone with a wet fish. Their current trimmer may be young but had completed almost exactly the same amount of time on their boat at Dirk de Ridder.
A previous case of cheating in a one design regatta saw the owners banned from all yachting competitions for a decade and the people who only
heard about it but didn't dob them in copped one year bans.
Apart from arguing that the penalties, which also included a US$250,000 fine and bans on three other team members, were too severe they will point to the disruption it caused to their build-up in terms of boat development and preparation.
They cannot argue 250k fine is harsh. In the same regatta Luna Rossa were fined 100k for not sending enough team members to the launch party (true story). Oracle's budget is reportedly in the $200m region. $250k is probably less than their coffee bill for the cup cycle.
Disruption to their build up outside of the sailing team is irrelevant. They have over 100 shore crew plus another 11 flown in after the first few races. NZ has 31. If Oracle lost 50 shore crew they would still have double that of any other competitor in the cycle.
Oracle made their own bed when they wrote this protocol and only via the ongoing cries of hardship out of Oracle can anyone come up with the position they were hard done by. They have had twice the resources of their competitor and all of the home advantages imaginable so to hear skipper Jimmy Spithill crying hardship and adversity day after day is just crocodile tears aimed at the gullible.
You'd struggle to find a worse case of all-round poor attitude outside of Oracle. From the repeated negative and derogatory public statements by the CEO, the crap-talking by their skipper, the fabricated accusations by their scumbag lawyer (Tom Ehman) to the repeated arm-twisting of the regatta director a few months ago (which took the International Jury to set him straight) they have conducted themselves relatively disgracefully by sporting standards - and most people who follow the cup recognise this. It's sad because Spithill is a
mega talent and the vast majority of the team are no doubt people just going about their day jobs. Ben Ainslie is a legend and has been a breath of fresh air in their press conferences to show some respect for their competitors, their situation and the International Jury.
