Sailing: Billionaire teams battle to challenge Kiwis

The outcome of the Louis Vuitton Cup was always going to be a battle of the billionaires, and the two most determined, the Swiss pharmaceuticals magnate Ernesto Bertarelli and the computer software entrepreneur Larry Ellison, line up tomorrow to decide the winner. The silverware is less important than the ticket it contains – the right to be the sole challenger on the start line against Team New Zealand for the America's Cup.

In 2000, there was a battle royal. Italy's Prada, stoked up by the ambitious Patrizio Bertelli, clashed angrily and spectacularly with an equally heated AmericaOne team from San Francisco, led by the sport's Mr Cool, Paul Cayard. Prada came from 3-4 down to win 5-4 in a red-blooded series, which had half of Italy watching on television in the middle of the night.

This time, a man with Italian roots again takes on the successor to that San Francisco outfit, but the mood could not be more different. The Louis Vuitton Cup final between Alinghi and Oracle has been turned into a sideshow locally, following the revelation of the supercharged boats which the New Zealanders have developed to defend the America's Cup next month.

It would be difficult to find anyone who would bet against that defence being successful. All thoughts have skipped ahead, and you can almost hear a smug army of Kiwi supporters already settling into their armchairs, a case of cold beers at the ready.

If the locals have a preference as to whom they would like to see crushed, it would be the Swiss, as they are skippered by the man who twice won the America's Cup for New Zealand, Russell Coutts. He and half a dozen of his closest buddies moved on to join the Swiss challenge, for which they have been branded traitors and subjected to an unrelenting hate campaign whipped up by a group calling itself Blackheart.

The rabble-rousers need not have bothered if the confidence, even premature triumphalism, shown by Team New Zealand is justified. Every one of the challengers looks to have been ambushed by a country that keeps coming up with clever ideas.

But there is a school of thought which says that the Kiwis may derive little or no gain for their design innovation and that, particularly in light to moderate winds, the costs, in terms of weight and drag, outweigh the benefits of fitting their underwater surf board.

Alinghi has already beaten Oracle, skippered by Coutts' fellow Aucklander Chris Dickson, 4-0 in the semi-final and seemed to have something in hand when doing it. Gains in America's Cup boats are small, hard-earned and incremental. Alinghi should go through untroubled.

Timetable for America's Cup final eliminator

The Louis Vuitton Cup finals are staged as a best-of-nine series, beginning tomorrow. Each race is over six legs, three upwind and three down, totalling 18.5 miles in distance. Weather permitting, racing will continue every day until one team has scored five wins, although next Tuesday, Saturday 18 and Wednesday 22 January are designated rest days while Thursday 23 and Friday 24 are reserve days if the issue remains unresolved. Both teams have agreed to extend the period until one has won five races if the schedule is interrupted.