Miracle On the Bay: Oracle Team USA Wins the America’s Cup

It is one of the greatest comeback stories in sports history.

Oracle Team USA rallied from an 8-1 deficit against challenger Emirates Team New Zealand to take the 34th America’s Cup in a winner-take-all 19th race.  Led by 35-year-old skipper Jimmy Spithill, Oracle Team USA won by the score of 9-8.

This is the second America’s Cup win for Oracle Team USA and Spithill, which won the 162-year-old trophy in Valencia, Spain, in February 2010. In the past week Oracle Team USA has steadily improved its boat speed to the point where it could hydrofoil upwind at 30-32 knots, incredible performance never seen before in the America’s Cup.

Skipper Jimmy Spithill and the entire crew celebrated by popping magnums of Mumm Napa Brut Prestige. “It was a fantastic race. We wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Spithill, the two-time Cup winner. “Thanks to San Francisco, this is one hell of a day.”