Tauranga sailor Peter Burling and team-mate Blair Tuke have made an brilliant start to their Olympic regatta, taking two race wins on the opening day of racing in the men's 49er.
Burling and Tuke, the four-time world champions, underlined their status as gold medal favourites, playing the light winds perfectly on the in-shore course at Guanabara Bay.
"We're really happy to get a couple of low scores on the board and not walk away with anything big and just to get into the series, you know, we've been waiting a long time to get racing, and we've been really enjoying ourselves out there and I think that showed today," Burling said.
The Kiwi pair got a little bit lucky in the opening race, capitalising on a late error from the Danish crew of Jonas Warrer and Christian Peter Lubeck, who had led for most of the race.
The Danes inexplicably missed the final top mark, sailing well beyond the mark before realising their error and turning back. It cost Warrer and Lubeck seven places, with the Danish pair eventually finishing eighth.