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Sunday 28 May 2017

America's Cup 2017: Ben Ainslie's GB team joint top despite collision on day one

Sir Ben Ainslie's Great Britain team won one and lost one of their opening two races as the America's Cup Qualifiers got under way on Saturday. After Friday's opening day in Bermuda was postponed due to strong winds, Ainslie's Land Rover BAR beat Sweden's Artemis Racing in their opening race. But they were then defeated by SoftBank Team Japan after helmsman Ainslie was penalised for a start-line collision. With damage to one hull, GB finished 48 seconds behind the Japanese. BAR - whose crew includes tactician Giles Scott, who won Olympic gold in Rio last summer - still finished the day top of the table with defending champions Oracle Team USA, who await the top challenger in the 35th America's Cup starting on 17 June. Oracle won both of their races on Saturday, leaving the two teams level on three points. Standings America's Cup standings Team Wins Losses World Series points Total points Great Britain 1 1 2* 3 United States 2 0 1* 3 Sweden 1 1 0 1 New Zealand 1 1 0 1 Japan 1 1 0 1 France 0 2 0 0 *Land Rover BAR started the qualifiers with two points and Oracle Team USA with one point after finishing first and second respectively in the 2015-16 America's Cup World Series. 'We silenced a lot of doubters' "We had a bit of an up-and-down day," said Ainslie. "We had a fantastic first race, we took down Artemis who were the form team coming into this America's Cup. "It was fantastic for the team, we silenced a lot of doubters out there. "We've then got to back that up with a win in the second race - unfortunately we had a big collision with Softbank Team Japan. We suffered a big hole in the side of our boat. "It was all we could do to get round the course and, frankly given the damage to the boat, it was pretty amazing that we did that. "Now the shore team have got to work their magic to fix the damage and get us out for racing tomorrow."

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