Defending champions Emirates New Zealand have lived up to their favorite position at the start of the 37th America’s Cup. The “Kiwis” won the first two races of the sailing competition for the world’s oldest sports trophy off the coast of Barcelona on Saturday with a clear lead over challenger team Ineos Britannia from the United Kingdom.
In the first race, Team New Zealand led by skipper Peter Burling, which had recently won the America’s Cup twice, gained a lead of 41 seconds; in the second, the gap to the British led by sailing icon Ben Ainslie was 27 seconds. Races three and four take place on Sunday and will be sailed in a best-of-13 mode.
“We got off to a great start,” said Burling, who became the youngest helmsman to win the trophy in 2017 at the age of 26. Now he wants to get his country’s third win in a row. The British prevailed in the challenger regattas against competition from Italy, the USA, France and Switzerland.
“The Kiwis did a good job, we didn’t do much wrong, they just ran a better race,” said Ainslie, who will bring the legendary silverware to the island for the first time in the competition’s 173-year history, after the first Race day: “There’s still a long way to go, we’ll keep pushing.”
