SAN FRANCISCO, March 3, 2022 – Less than one month remains until San Francisco sports legend Jimmy Spithill and the United States SailGP Team arrive in San Francisco for the championship-deciding Season 2 Grand Final, the Mubadala United States Sail Grand Prix, March 26-27.
Limited tickets remain for premium on-land viewing near Marina Green or on-water experiences to see the thrilling action unfold on San Francisco Bay between the iconic Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island.
“I can’t wait to get back to San Francisco,” Spithill said, who hasn’t raced here since he orchestrated one of the greatest sports comebacks of all time, winning the America’s Cup in 2013 after being down 8 - 1. “There’s a heap of history here and San Francisco Bay really is one of the best racing venues in the World.”
SailGP’s second season has seen eight national teams battle to qualify for the Grand Final over the championship’s seven events around the globe. San Francisco marks the league’s return to the U.S. after a three-year hiatus, promising to deliver spectacular racing action as the sport’s best athletes compete on the cutting-edge, foiling F50 catamaran – capable of 120 mph closing speeds as they go head-to-head on San Francisco Bay’s iconic, spectator-friendly racecourse.
The American team is on the verge of staging an impressive comeback, having steadily climbed the leaderboard after a collision in the first event caused them to finish in last place, and set the tone for a season of setbacks. “This season has been a wild ride – capsizes, crashes, broken bones,” Spithill said. “After our disastrous start to the season when the Japan team took us out, we couldn’t afford any mistakes and it really put the team under pressure. But, they responded.”
The U.S. team has already qualified for the March 27 season-deciding Grand Final alongside last season’s champions – Tom Slingsby’s Australia team. The weekend’s racing – featuring the sport’s top athletes representing eight national teams – will consist of five fleet races to complete the qualification, deciding the third team that will join in the final, winner-take-all race to claim sailing’s top purse, $1 million.
“As we have seen, anything can happen, so we need to make sure we are in one piece following the five fleet races and heading into the Championship race,” Spithill said. “We are the underdogs, but that’s not a bad thing in San Francisco.”
Alongside the SailGP Season 2 Championship, for the first time ever, a second podium will also take place on the Sunday to crown the Impact League winner – the league’s second podium for the planet. SailGP’s Impact League is a world-first, integrated initiative to make sustainability essential to the fabric of the sport and accelerate the transition to clean energy.
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