Oracle refuse to Cruise as finals start

The Swiss entry Alinghi and the Oracle-BMW racing team from San Francisco will star when the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup begin here today, but it is the star of another stage who has threatened to steal the spotlight.

On the eve of the first-to-five-wins series Oracle have had to deny that they will have Tom Cruise - in New Zealand filming The Last Samurai - on board during one of the races, which will determine who challenges for the America's Cup.

The reports are another twist in an already Hollywood-like challenger series which will have two New Zealand skippers in the final - one who has been branded a traitor and been the target of activists, the other rejected by the team who will defend the America's Cup next month.

Alinghi's Russell Coutts was the skipper of Team New Zealand when they won the Cup in 1995 and retained it in 2000, but he and the group that formed the nucleus of the team defected and have built a highly efficient unit for Ernesto Bertarelli, the billionaire who has funded Alinghi.

The battle between Coutts and his fellow Kiwi Chris Dickson, now skipper of Larry Ellison's Oracle, has added spice to the final. The two talk pub licly of the respect they hold for each other but their true feelings are well known, so it is appropriate that for the first time umpires will be on the yachts.

Alinghi have won five of the six times the two teams have met and Dickson said: "We know Alinghi is a very strong team. They come into this as favourites as they have beaten us more times than we have beaten them, so we have to turn things around."