| LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND-(3-12-2004) 'This is not my trophy', declared Ernesto Bertarelli holding aloft the Olympic Cup which the IOC President had just presented to him, `it is Team Alinghi`s trophy.` `This Olympic Cup is important not just to us, but to our sport`, he added.
First Olympic Cup for sailing!
On Wednesday evening in the Olympic Museum auditorium, IOC President Jacques Rogge presented the Olympic Cup to the crew of Alinghi in recognition of their legendary victory in the 2003 America’s Cup in Auckland. `As the Olympic Cup prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary two years from now, this is the first time it has gone to sailing, and I am particularly pleased about that!`, said the President.
Alinghi and the Olympic Movement: shared values
As he saw it, Alinghi and the Olympic Movement both stand for the same values: team spirit, friendship, solidarity and fair play, qualities undeniably shown by the Swiss team throughout their long journey to victory. He was pleased to note that, for yachtsmen, the Olympic Games are often a key port of call on a voyage which will one day take them to the America’s Cup. This was the case for Russell Coutts, an Olympic champion, Jochen Schuemann, Peter Holmberg and the others. The President concluded by noting proudly that sailing is a clean, doping-free sport, as Athens clearly demonstrated.
See you in Valencia!
As bad weather had prevented Jacques Rogge from joining the team for a regatta in Auckland, Ernesto Bertarelli invited him to Valencia and calmer waters!
History of the Olympic Cup
The IOC awards the Olympic Cup each year to an association or institution which has provided distinguished service to sport or contributed successfully to the promotion of the Olympic ideals.
In its January 1906 edition, the Olympic Review announced that the Olympic Cup “will be awarded to the sporting body or sports encouragement organisation that most deserves the honour. The recipient will retain it for one year and the name of that recipient will be engraved on the base.”
Today, the institution awarded the Cup receives a reproduction, and the original is kept in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Designed by Charles Massin, it is made of gold, silver and crystal. Decorated with sports motifs, it is topped by a statuette holding aloft a laurel crown in one hand, while the other holds a shield on which is engraved the historic date of the re-establishment of the Olympic Games, proclaimed at the Sorbonne by the Paris International Congress on 23 June 1894.
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