America's Cup: the launch of the La Roche-Posay Racing Team's AC75 in Bagnoli

The applause of the many guests lined up along the wall overlooking the sea outside the La Roche-Posay technical base welcomed the launch of the French AC75, the first of the seven boats that will compete for the America's Cup 2027, as it entered the waters of Bagnoli where preparation training for the Louis Vuitton Cup will immediately begin.

During the last edition, in Barcelona, the Transalpine Racing Team was the last to arrive in the Spanish hangars. This time, after the encouraging results of the preliminary regatta in September, La Roche-Posay precedes everyone and presents itself to the city with a ceremony attended by local and national institutions and the leaders of Sport and Health, the implementing body of the America's Cup appointed by the Italian Government.

The main protagonists, however, are the athletes who take to the stage shortly after the speech of the team's CEO, Stephan Kandler: there is the skipper Quentin Delapierre, the helmsmen Diego Botin and Enzo Balanger, the trimmers Jason Saunders, Florian Trittel and Leigh McMillan, the two strategists Amelie Grassi and Maelenn Lemaitre and the support member of the crew, Timothe Lapauw.

"It's a very exciting day for us, we are the first team to be in the water and I think this is really important: we need to know the conditions here, a race awaits us where we have to evolve the boat, every training day is an opportunity to do so" says the trimmer, born in Switzerland but with a Spanish passport, Florian Trittel, on the sidelines of the event.

"You can already see from afar - underlines the Olympic gold medal in sailing at the Paris Games in 2024 - that this team is taking the right inertia: if we work well we can achieve results" explains Trittel, who defines as "heavenly" the regatta field that will host the event to which the Roche-Posay Racing Team arrives with a team made up of "more than 100 people" and with a clear objective: "The opponents are strong, the game will be very open, but we're here too. From now on - concludes the trimmer - eight months begin in which we have to work like never before".