Jimmy Spithill, the Oracle Team USA skipper, is battling to regain fitness after having elbow surgery immediately after last month’s Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series in Portsmouth.

Spithill tore a tendon in his left elbow and flew straight to California for treatment at the end of the fleet regatta.

Last year the multiple America’s Cup winner, ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year and past King Edward VII Gold Cup winner underwent an operation for an injury on his right elbow that flared in the build-up to Oracle’s successful defence of the America’s Cup in 2013.

“Unfortunately I tore a tendon in my left elbow,” Spithill said. “The initial injury I did was on my right elbow during the 2013 America’s Cup, this was a torn tendon, but on the inside of the arm-commonly referred to as ‘Golfers Elbow’.

“I had this operated on by the DISC medical group after the 2013 America’s Cup. This injury I did was on the outside of my left elbow, commonly referred to as ‘Tennis Elbow’.

“Like the previous injury we tried physio, cortisone, etc but after six months it had gotten worse and we decided to do it straight after Portsmouth.

“I injured the left elbow from overloading my arm training due to the original injury and long recovery of my right elbow. When they opened the arm up they discovered that the tear had become much worse and was almost off the bone, likely from pushing it in Portsmouth, so [it was] important we did it when we did.”

Despite the injury Spithill expects to be fit enough to compete at the next month’s World Series regatta in Toulon.

“The recovery on this surgery is much quicker as the operation was much less complicated than the first operation,” he said. “I should be good for Toulon.”

While Spithill recovers from surgery and prepares for the competition in France in September several of his America’s Cup rivals will be heading to Rio for the Olympics.

Nathan Outteridge, the Artemis Racing skipper, and Iain Jensen, the Artemis tactician, are defending champions in the 49er class, where Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, of Emirates Team New Zealand, will look to go one better than the silver they picked up at the London Games in 2012.

The New Zealand pair go into the competition as favourites this time around, however, after going largely undefeated since then.

“We don’t feel like we’re going there to defend the gold because since then, we haven’t really posted a win at any major event,” Outteridge said.

“We’re going there to try and win the gold. Last time around our sole focus was the Olympics, but it’s pretty obvious that in the lead up to Rio, we’re not focused anywhere near as hard as we were in the past. Now, we have the America’s Cup, which means World Series events and developing a boat for 2017.”

Elsewhere, Giles Scott, of Land Rover BAR, will compete in the Finn class where the world champion will finally be able to step out of Sir Ben Ainslie’s shadow.

Giles was arguably the best, or second best, Finn sailor in the world heading into the last Olympic Games. But the Finn class was also Ainslie’s class, and with only one sailor per country allowed at the Games, Scott was relegated to a coaching and supporting role. Now, it’s his time.

“Every single time I speak to anybody in the media, I am compared to Ben,” Scott said. “I’m not Ben Ainslie, I just happen to be the guy that tried to beat him and failed.

“I’m not really sure I’ll ever step out of his shadow because of everything he’s done. It’s not the reason why I’m trying to win the Olympics — it’s more personal than that.”