Olympic Sailing 2024: McHardie and McKenzie magnificence keeps Kiwis ahead in Men’s Skiff

Following an eighth place finish in race four, the New Zealanders rallied to end the day with valuable back-to-back wins.

Ireland’s Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove continued to impress with three more top ten finishes which puts them five points adrift of the leaders.

The Spanish duo of Diego Botin le Chever and Florian Trittel climbed into the top three, after they claimed second in the final race of Day Three.

McHardie said: “We’ve got the boat going really well and we’re working well as a team and we’re enjoying every moment of it.

“We’re getting ourselves free and giving ourselves a chance to get the boat going fast and letting the speed of the boat do the talking.”

Dickson said: “We’ve done so much prep leading up to this and it’s crazy it’s already halfway through.”

“We’re happy with how we’re going. We haven’t got any big scores and we’re second overall now which is really great.”

Trittel said: “Today we are very tired because we had little wind and it was very hot, but at this stage of the championship, which has not even reached the halfway point, we feel comfortable with the position we are in, which is a position with options.

“But we are going for more, we want to fight. Stronger winds are expected for tomorrow and if that happens we will not suffer as much.”

How it works:

Medals for the Men’s Skiff (49er) will be decided by the cumulative results of the 20-strong fleet over 12 races.

The boat with the lowest total will rank first. Athletes will be able to discard their worst finishing position after they’ve completed three races.

At the end of the Opening Series, the top ten boats in the fleet will qualify for the Medal Race, which is worth double points.

The score in the Medal Race cannot be discarded. The crew with the smallest overall points total will win gold.