Alinghi: Youth & Woman’s skippers appointed

This week, two Unicredit Youth & Puig Women’s America’s Cup sailors at Alinghi Red Bull Racing received the special honour and responsibility of skippering for their respective teams: Jann Schüpbach for the Youth squad and Nathalie Brugger for the Women’s team.

Since their selection last October, all sailors in the Youth & Women’s teams have been busy training hard and testing different crew configurations onboard the AC40s in order to assemble the most competitive squads. For Jann Schüpbach (04.12.2000, Thun, Thunersee Yachtclub), whose background is in foiling yachts (69F, Moth, Waszp) with experience in Olympic campaigning, his new role as team skipper came as a welcome surprise.

“It's really cool to see the coaching staff and the management trust me to take more responsibility and believe the way I work and communicate with the team is right. It was definitely a surprise that it already happened! After testing different skippers for the last few weeks, I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

Driven by his goal to compete for Switzerland on the world stage, Jann says it’s been a long but rewarding road. “This has been a dream of mine since I watched the America's Cup in Valencia in 2007 with Alinghi winning the Cup, so it means the world to me. I've been really pushing for this goal for the last few years. It hasn't always been easy – I wasn’t always sure if it was the right thing to do – and now that it’s paid off, I'm really proud to represent Switzerland and Alinghi Red Bull Racing in the America's Cup.”

Of the 12 sailors representing the Alinghi Red Bull Racing Youth & Women’s teams, 10 are currently in full training mode at the Team Base in Barcelona. Maja Siegenthaler and Arno de Planta will reunite with the others towards the end of August having just competed in Marseille in the Olympic classes of 470 and 49er.

On the water, the teams have reported strong progress in recent weeks across many areas, including pre-starts, routines and simulated high-pressure scenarios. As they enter the final stages of training, the athletes will need to maintain this pace to stay competitive against the 11 other teams for the Unicredit Youth & Puig Women’s America’s Cup.