Suzanne McFadden: Team NZ benefits after Artemis skipper’s good deed punished

QUOTE-UNQUOTE: Burling, the man at the wheel of Emirates Team New Zealand, and Outteridge, the skipper of Swedish boat Artemis Racing, have been arch-rivals for the past eight years, but in the much smaller 49er skiff. They’ve taken turns at edging each other out – the Australian Outteridge and his crewmate Iain Jensen denied Burling and Blair Tuke the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics. The Aussies beat them again last August in the South American 49er championships. No big deal? Well, it broke the Kiwi pair’s unbeaten run over 27 consecutive regattas.Vengeance was Burling and Tuke’s a few weeks later when they dominated the Rio Olympics, relegating the Australians to silver. –Veteran Kiwi Cup journalist and our longtime friend, Suzanne McFadden, in another brilliantly incisive piece for newsroom.co.nz. Read it all here. Burling and Outteridge go at it again in today's first race at 1400 ADT (Bermuda), 1300 EDT, 1000 PDT, live in the USA on NBCSN and the NBCSN mobile app.

Artemis Racing helmsman Nathan Outteridge (AUS), right, lost in thought, and no doubt a bit disappointed, after losing Monday's race with Emirates Team New Zealand due to a pivotal penally by the umpires that the officials later said should have been green-flagged (no penalty). Photo: ACEA 2017 / Gilles Martin-Raget.