AMERICA’S CUP / DAILY REPORT : CHALLENGER TRIALS : Did New Zealand Let Italians Win?

When America’s Cup ’92 came to its first showdown Sunday, the Il Moro di Venezia winner suggested that New Zealand let him win.

“You could say that,” Paul Cayard said. “(But) I’m not taking too many conclusions.”

Peter Blake, general manager of the New Zealand team, told reporters, “That’s for us to know and you to find out.”

The Italians won by 2 minutes 14 seconds after the lead switched twice--the second time at the first windward mark when skipper Rod Davis and his crew made what Cayard described as three mistakes “uncharacteristic of the Kiwis.”

“I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys,” Cayard said. “Those three mistakes in a row were uncharacteristic of the Kiwis.”

Cayard said one of his crew noticed a five-minute “face-to-face argument” among the New Zealand afterguard after one of the mistakes.

Why would the Kiwis sandbag this early in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger trials?

“Maybe not to show off their downwind speed,” Cayard said.

Blake was not on the boat and Davis was unavailable for comment.

After Saturday’s opening victory over the troubled Spirit of Australia, the Italians are 2-0, along with Pedro Campos’ Espana and Chris Dickson’s Nippon Challenge.

But the order isn’t sorted out yet. Espana and Nippon have merely beaten Sweden’s Tre Kronor (0-2) and Phil Thompson’s Challenge Australia (0-2), neither of which has shown competitive speed.

The other results Sunday: Espana over Tre Kronor by 4:22, Nippon over Challenge Australia by 8:52--about 1 1/4 miles--and Marc Pajot’s Ville de Paris (1-1) by 11:00 over Spirit of Australia (0-2).

For what it’s worth, the French sailed the 20-mile course faster than anyone, in 3 hours 9 minutes 51 seconds.

The winds were light all day, from five to seven knots, delaying the start by an hour and 15 minutes. They didn’t settle into a steady direction, but swung counter-clockwise 75 degrees from start to finish, southwest to southeast, toward Mexico.