{"id":418738,"date":"2026-01-17T08:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T08:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418738\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T08:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T08:56:20","slug":"debutants-sweden-tied-for-lead-australia-fourth-after-day-one-of-sailgp-fremantle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/418738\/","title":{"rendered":"Debutants Sweden tied for lead, Australia fourth after day one of SailGP Fremantle"},"content":{"rendered":"

SailGP debutant Sweden is locked in a three-way tie for the lead after the first day of racing in Fremantle, with the Australian boat Flying Roos well placed in fourth spot heading into Sunday’s races.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Saturday’s four fleet races, Sweden, the US and France are deadlocked on 31 points, with Australia and the United Kingdom tied for fourth place on 24 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Australians had a dominant showing in the first of four rounds, taking the win, while a shock collision between New Zealand and Switzerland knocked both teams out in the opening race.<\/p>\n

\"Boats<\/p>\n

The moment the Swiss and New Zealand boats collided in race one. (ABC News: Andrew O’Connor)<\/p>\n

The Roos couldn’t repeat their performance in the second and third rounds, placing eighth and ninth, but sailed into third place in the final race of the day.<\/p>\n

Sweden’s Artemis Racing, helmed by Australian sailing hall-of-famer Nathan Outteridge, snatched first place from France in the third round.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The crew of Artemis acquitted themselves well in their first SailGP races. (ABC News: Andrew O’Connor)<\/p>\n

Artemis followed that up with a dominant fourth race, claiming another win.<\/p>\n

Race five and six are scheduled for Sunday.<\/p>\n

Injury hit<\/p>\n

Fremantle is hosting SailGP for the first time this season.<\/p>\n

Team Australia suffers injury setback in Sail GP<\/a><\/p>\n

Team Australia has suffered an early injury setback in the lead-up to the opening race of the Sail Grand Prix season.<\/p>\n

Both Australia and Sweden lost key crew members to injuries in training while battling strong afternoon winds, colloquially known as the “Fremantle doctor”.<\/p>\n

Australia’s star recruit Iain Jensen was sidelined after suffering a serious knee injury, with veteran sailor Glenn Ashby taking his spot on the Flying Roos.<\/p>\n

Sweden’s Chris Draper was thrown into their catamaran’s trampoline during wild conditions and required stitches for facial injuries, but was cleared to race.<\/p>\n

Wind conditions on Saturday were not as strong as expected during the races.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Crowds flocked to Fremantle for the event. (ABC News: Andrew O’Connor)<\/p>\n

Sweden clocked the top speed of the day with 84.64 kilometres an hour.<\/p>\n

Crowd laps up Fremantle’s debut<\/p>\n

Fremantle’s shores were packed with a crowd of about 15,000 people in attendance for the event.<\/p>\n

Australian supporters were out in force on their local turf, but there were also strong crowds for Team New Zealand, France, and Great Britain.<\/p>\n

Attendee Rick Fiddes said he enjoyed the event but it was a shame most of the public were not able see it.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

These Australian SailGP fans enjoyed the event.\u00a0 (ABC News: Cason Ho)<\/p>\n

“It is really great. I just think it needs more public viewing. Get the public in, more people around \u2026 more atmosphere,” he said.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SailGP debutant Sweden is locked in a three-way tie for the lead after the first day of racing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,86,9083,156623,220684,220685,220686,45,9082],"class_list":["post-418738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-perth-news","tag-perth-sport","tag-sailgp","tag-sailgp-fremantle","tag-sailgp-in-wa","tag-sailgp-perth","tag-wa-news","tag-wa-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}