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After 14 months of deliberations
and negotiations, the Valencia Plan for the format
and scoring of the Challenger Selection Series for
the Louis Vuitton Cup is being announced jointly
by ACM and the CC in Valencia today.
Here is a summary of the Valencia Plan -- breaking
the Challenger Selection Series for the Louis Vuitton
Cup into its four phases.
• The Acts
Beginning with Act 4 this month (the 2004 Acts will
not be counted), at the end of each Act the first-placed
Challenger (irrespective of Alinghi's final place)
scores points equal to the number of Challengers
(11), the second place Challenger scores one less
point, etc.
These points are multiplied by the weighting factor
for that Act: 2005 Acts x 1, 2006 Acts x 2, 2007
Act x 3. After the final (13th) Act in April 2007,
the total points each Challenger has accumulated
will rank the Challengers first through last.
This "Louis Vuitton Rank" is used to award bonus
points to be carried forward by Challengers into
the Round Robins. LV Rank 1 is awarded four bonus
points, LV Ranks 2, 3, and 4 each get three bonus
points, LV Ranks 5, 6 and 7 two bonus points, and
LV Ranks 8-11 one bonus point.
Challengers will also be "seeded" into the Round
Robin schedule of races according to LV Rank, with
the highest-ranked teams meeting at the end of each
Round Robin.
• The LVC Round Robins
In mid-April thru early May 2007 the 11 Challengers
will sail two Round Robins, match-racing each of
the other 10 Challengers twice for a total of 20
matches each (110 matches in total!).
Each Round Robin win counts 2 points. Maximum possible
points a Challenger could have at the end of the
Round Robins is 44 (20 race wins x 2 points, plus
a maximum of 4 bonus points).
At the end of the second Round Robin, the four Challengers
with the most points advance to the Semi-Finals,
and the Challenger with the most points at the end
of the Round Robins gets to choose which of the
other three it will race in its Semi-Final series.
• The LVC Semi-Finals
In mid-May 2007, head-to-head match racing for the
two Semi-Final "pairs." The winner of each Semi-Final
is the first to win five races.
• The LVC Finals
In early June 2007, the winners of the two Semi-Final
series meet in the LVC Finals; again, the winner
is the first to win five races. The winner of the
LVC Finals is awarded the Louis Vuitton Cup, and
races the Defender in the 32nd America's Cup Match
beginning 23 June 2007 (also first to win five races).
The actual dates of the two Round Robins, the Semi-Finals
and the Finals will be finalized shortly by the
Challenger Commission and ACM.
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