Photo by Monash University

Three decades on, it’s difficult to overstate the significance of Australia II’s victory in the 1983 America’s Cup. Faced with 132 years of American domination, and staring down the barrel of a 3-1 deficit in the best-of-seven match races, the Australian victory remains our most hallowed sporting triumph. Of course, that win was much more than a mere sporting triumph. In an era when our borders were opening, our tariff barriers crumbling, that triumph represented Australia’s emergence on the international stage. It confirmed everything we wanted the world to see in us: our pluck, our strength, our cheeky genius.

As skipper of Australia II, John Bertrand’s name will forever be synonymous with that triumph. But, in truth, the ’83 America’s Cup forms only a sliver of Bertrand’s sporting resume. He represented Australia at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, claiming a bronze medal in the Finn Class at the notorious Montreal Games, while mounting three unsuccessful America’s Cup campaigns in ‘70, ’74 and ’80. He also skippered oneAustralia, the ill-fated challenger in the ’95 Cup that broke apart in rough waters off San Diego.

Bertrand is a true sporting icon in this country. He’s chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, chairman of selectors for the Australian Olympic sailing team and president of Swimming Australia. He has also launched Monash University’s John Bertrand Leadership Series, a program benchmarking Australia’s finest leaders from the sporting, commercial, technological and military spheres.

In Bertrand, the program has a fine skipper.

On the 30th anniversary of that famous triumph in Newport, Rhode Island, Inside Sport sat the great man down for a yarn.