The edition of the America's Cup to be held in 2024 in Barcelona is beginning to take shape. It was already known that it will be the first time the competition will include women's and youth teams, or that its historic trophy will make a route as if it were the Olympic torch to bring the regatta closer to the citizens. But, this Tuesday, the organization has revealed new details, a few months before all the teams are already installed in the city to start training in its sea.
The master of ceremonies was Grant Dalton, CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand, the winning team of the previous edition of the regatta and responsible for organizing the one that will come in two years. "Many things have happened since the announcement in March," he began from the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, a space that the Barcelona Provincial Council has made available to the organizers for the event and for the competition itself. After defining the areas of Port Vell that will be allocated for the bases, the organization has already specified where each team will be located, allowing Emirates Team New Zealand to choose first, then making way for INEOS Team Brittannia, the team that will challenge the current owner of the trophy, and the other four participants, according to the order in which they registered for the competition. The women's and youth teams will be located in Port Olímpic, where a hydrogen pilot will also be carried out.
From the bases in Port Vell, the boats will depart to compete in the sea, very close to the Barcelona coast, just 200 meters away. The mobilization of more than 1,000 volunteers is expected, both for land and for sea, following the Olympic wake. The competition will have privileged views from Barceloneta, although the America's Cup will also enable areas to follow the regatta at Moll de la Fusta. In the old Imax, whose demolition has been delayed with the arrival of the regatta, an informative tour will be organized where more details of the competition can be discovered, in collaboration with Mediapro. Interactive simulators will be included and the cinema's 600-meter screen will be recovered to make one feel like another participant in the competition in the middle of a regatta.
In the same vein as the new space at the Imax, Emirates Team New Zealand has opted to create for the first time a documentary series that explains the intricacies of the regatta, little known to the general public despite being one of the sports competitions with the most global media impact, with 940 million viewers, only behind the Olympics and the football World Cups. The documentary series, which the organization estimates will add 1.5 million more viewers, will be directed by Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, Oscar winners for the documentary Free Solo in 2018. "What will also be shown will be the city of Barcelona because the teams will already be installed there," Dalton pointed out.
Precisely, the CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand hopes that the different teams will settle "as soon as possible" in the Catalan capital. "The teams are already ready to come here," he remarked. Initially, their arrival had been planned for early 2024, but everything has been accelerated so that by June of next year the six participating teams of the America's Cup will be installed in the city, with construction work on the bases starting in April. It is estimated that each will come with 150 people, to whom their families will have to be added. One of the six participants, the Alinghi Red Bull Racing Team, has been the most advanced and has been in Barcelona since this summer. And, as Dalton has announced, it is expected that there will eventually be a seventh participant disembarking in Barcelona.
To make this possible, many actions have had to be accelerated in the Port of Barcelona. According to its president, Damià Calvet, a total of 16 already planned projects have been brought forward so that the port is ready for the competition, totaling an investment of 55 million euros. Among them, he cited the urbanization of the open spaces in the Bocana Nord, the new fishermen's market, the demolition of the old Cinesa, and the modernization of the Moll Drassanes. The competition will also involve the creation of a nautical bus service between Moll Drassanes and Moll de Llevant.
Everything will have to be ready for August 22, 2024, the day the America's Cup will begin, with a regatta of all teams that will last until August 26. Then will come the challenges between the participants, from August 31 to October 6. And, finally, the competition between the two finalists, between October 12 and October 27. In defining the dates, the 2024 Olympic Games, scheduled between August 1 and August 12, have been taken into account.