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Blair Tuke, Peter Burling lead the way for Kiwis with positive first day at sailing world champs

February 12, 2020
The event is a chance for New Zealand's favourite sailing duo to stake their claim for the Tokyo Olympics.

Defending champions Blair Tuke and Peter Burling are leading the way for Kiwi boats after the first day of racing at the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 world championships in Australia.

Burling and Tuke won two of their three races and also collected a fifth on the opening day of the 49er competition in Geelong to sit third overall, two points behind the leaders.

"We didn’t have the best start in the middle race and would have been about 20th at the top mark but the breeze was going all over the place, with big puffs and we managed to get a fair few on the run," Burling said.

Tuke added: "A big rain cloud came through in the second race which shook things up a little bit. I think it was a 1, 5, 1 for us. It could have been better but, all in all, a good start."

Markus Somerville and Jack Simpson were the next best of the Kiwis in 12th, with Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn 13th.

Elsewhere, Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson are fourth in the 34-boat Nacra fleet off the back of three top-10 results, while Liv Mackay and Jason Saunders are ninth and Gemma Jones and Josh Porebski 20th.

The Laser world championships also got under way across town and they, too, were delayed as they waited for the breeze to fill in. Sam Meech earned two fifths to be 11th overall, with Tom Saunders is not far behind in 13th.

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