Audi MedCup: ALL4ONE Ready for the Off!

by Stephanie Nadin

Here we go! After a marathon of one month and a half, with a real challenge against time to prepare its entry on the Audi MedCup Circuit, Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONE is now ready to race on board its new TP52 boat for the Portugal Trophy (Cascais, Portugal, 11-16 May).

Stephane Kandler, ALL4ONE's CEO: « What ALL4ONE has achieved in less than 6 months is amazing for a new team. After a great start in the Louis Vuitton Trophy supported by a first group of sponsors (Geodis, adidas, Saint-Honoré, Château Tourril, Canal+), we are now entering another high-level circuit with a prestigious sponsor. This shows the potential of our French-German team. Our goal is to keep on this trend for the next months by spending always more time on the water together and by convincing more companies to back us so that we may play with the best sailing teams every year, and be able to achieve our ultimate goal: the America's Cup. We thank again Audi and adidas for their support on the Audi MedCup and we are proud to bear their colours for this season. I also wish to congratulate our team, and especially the people on shore who have achieved a great job to enable the Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONE to be at the start of the Portugal Trophy in Cascais. »

The Audi MedCup will enable the Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONE to work on the human dimension, and to sail together a lot more. The idea is to develop the common experience as a team in boat development, in order to make it a good base towards the next America's Cup. Indeed, performance comes both from the sports results (like for the Louis Vuitton Trophy for example) as much as from the boat and sails development. So this is a perfect way to work on the relationship and communications process between the sailors, the design team and the shore team.

The boat the team will sail with this season is the former Mean Machine, a good boat even if it is not from the very last generation.

Jochen Schümann, Skipper and Sports Director: "the boat is ready, even if we still have a few little works to do before the start of the races to fine tune it for the « real » competition and the first results. It will be a big test for us as we have not had the chance to train a lot before this first event like the other teams, we have mostly worked on the boat, so it will be tough to get into the competition, but we will fight!"

The team on this first event will be formed of:

Jean-Marie Dauris FRA - Bow (2 America's Cup)
Christophe André FRA - Grinder (1 America's Cup, Equipe de France de Match Racing with Sebastien Col)
Albert Jacobsoone FRA - Pit (7 America's Cup)
Gilles Favennec FRA - Foredeck-grinder (2 America's Cup, Equipe de France de Match Racing with Sebastien Col)
Sébastien Col FRA - Tactician (2 America's Cup, Equipe de France de Match Racing, Helmsman for team ALL4ONE in Louis Vuitton Trophy)
Philippe Mourniac FRA - Navigator (3 America's Cup, multihull)
Christian Scherrer SUI - Jib trimmer (4 America's Cup - 1 win, Whitbread)
Peter van Niekerk NED - Spinnaker trimmer-grinder (2 America's Cup - 2 wins)
Jorge Ondo ESP - Grinder (1 America's Cup)
Paolo Bassani ITA - Floater and boat captain (3 America's Cup, Whitbread)
Luke Molloy AUS - Main sail trimmer (1 America's Cup, Volvo Ocean Race)
Jochen Schümann GER - Skipper and Helmsman (3 America's Cup - 2 wins, 3 Olympic gold medals, et 1 Olympic silver medal)

The team wil also be joined in Marseille by:
Michi Müller GER - Foredeck-grinder (1 America's Cup, 1 Volvo Ocean Race)

ALL4ONE Challenge
Audi MedCup