Olympic Sailing 2024: Peru’s Peschiera stars in opening races of the Men’s Dinghy

Following appearances in Rio and Tokyo in the Men’s Laser, the Peruvian sailor began his third Olympic Games impeccably, finishing first in the second race of the day to claim an early seven-point lead in the ILCA 7 class.

Reigning Olympic champion Matt Wearn began his medal defence strongly with second in race two, putting him narrowly behind Peschiera.

Portugal’s Eduardo Marques followed in third overall, carried by a fine fifth in race one, as he managed to navigate the unpredictable winds.

Peschiera said: “It was tricky. There were really patchy conditions out there. The right was mainly favoured today, but I think it was difficult to predict or see. I was mainly consistent. This is one of the most competitive fleets, so nothing is set.

“We’re going to take away all the good things and learn from any mistakes and treat it like one more day of sailing. The Marseille bay keeps surprising us, no two days are the same here.

“I’ve trained pretty hard for this, like everyone else, so I think it came down to the mental part today.”

Marques said: “It was really hard to understand where the pressure was coming from. In the first race I think I managed quite well, the second one was a bit messy for me, but I’m still happy.

“This place is really hard. It’s more about the pressure than the shifts. I’m just staying relaxed and trying to go as fast as possible.”

How it works:

Medals for the Men’s Dinghy (ILCA 7) will be decided by the cumulative results of the 40-strong fleet over 10 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 sailor with the smallest overall points total will win gold.