Swedes Hand Italians a Win : America’s Cup: Il Moro gets the victory after Tre Kronor fails to officially complete the race.

No, the Swedish Bikini Team didn’t distract them.

If Las Vegas oddsmakers had handicapped the race between Sweden and Italy in Day 6 of the America’s Cup challengers’ trials, the point spread--or in this case the time spread--would have given the Swedes something like an hour head start.

As it was, in the first America’s Cup meeting of Italy and Sweden, Tre Kronor didn’t even cross the finish line Saturday.

“They decided not to cross the finish line, this is very fair,” said a voice in the media center charting the races.

By not crossing the finish line, skipper Gunnar Krantz and his crew kept with the day’s tradition. They never crossed the start line, either.

The start proved to be a tricky maneuver for Il Moro and Tre Kronor. Both were flagged with premature starts, and had to go back to ‘touch’ the start line. The Paul Cayard-skippered Italians got there, the Swedes made it only three-quarters of the way there and thus were disqualified.

This wasn’t a news flash. The Swedes knew they hadn’t cleared the start the second time when they saw the race committee signal as much, but decided they’d rather test their new mainsail, their non-measured mainsail , and see how it would perform against proven Il Moro.

“Tomorrow we’re alone across the course,” Krantz said. “The only reason we didn’t go back was it was the last opportunity we had to try something new. We didn’t want to let them get away. Il Moro is fast, we had to try something drastic.”

For them, yes. But otherwise, it was a dull day at the office. Only two races were scheduled off Point Loma: Espana against New Zealand and Tre Kronor matching tacks with Il Moro di Venezia. Ville de Paris and Nippon Challenge were left to sail solo when earlier withdrawals from the end of Round 1 by Spirit of Australia and Challenge Australia forced them to finish the course alone, and under the allotted four-hour, 12-minute time limit to earn their respective points--one each.

When the Sweden-Italy match became a non-race, the day’s remaining showdown turned into a letdown when the Kiwis steadily increased their lead over Espana en route to a four-minute, 16-second victory over the 20.03 nautical-mile course in winds that stayed within 7 to 9 knots and shifted 10 degrees.

Going into today’s final matches of the opening round, Il Moro, Nippon and New Zealand are tied for the lead at five victories apiece. Ville de Paris is nipping at their heels with four victories, Spirit of Australia has three and Espana has two. Challenge Australia and Tre Kronor have yet to score a point.

Today, Il Moro-Ville de Paris and Espana-Nippon close out the round. Tre Kronor, which has only to finish to win its first point, and New Zealand will race among themselves.

“All we have to do is be legal and sail around to get the point,” said Krantz, who added that his blue boat’s new mainsail is legal, but arrived too late--Friday night--to be measured for Saturday’s race.

Krantz said the sacrifice Saturday was a simple a case of “pay me now or pay me later.” Although he knew Tre Kronor was a latecomer to the America’s Cup preparation, he wasn’t prepared for how advanced many of the other syndicates were.

“Wow,” he said. “They’ve done their homework. We’re further behind than we thought.”

Has Sweden, in fact, been hurt by its late arrival?

“Maybe, but the learning curve during racing is much steeper than it is during training.”

The acquisition of the new sail was a big happy face for the Swedes, but it was only the tip of the modification iceberg.

“This is a big step for us,” he said, “but we still have a long way to go.”