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Sailor Matt Wearn wins gold at Olympic test event

Matt Wearn has won the dinghy gold at the Olympic sailing test event off Marseille. (PR HANDOUT IMAGE PHOTO) (AAP)

Australian Olympic champion Matt Wearn has won gold at the Paris 2014 Olympic sailing test event off Marseille.

An emphatic win in the double-points medal race on Saturday left him seven points clear of his nearest rival in the highly-competitive ILCA 7 dinghy class.

The win was welcome reinforcement for Wearn who won Laser gold at the Tokyo Olympics.

"It feels great. It has been a while since I stepped on to the top step of the podium so it's nice to get it done here," said Wearn.

"Obviously, a great confidence boost for 12 months' time, as well. It's the first win with Rafa (new coach Rafael Trujillo Villar) too, so I think for the both of us it cements the work we have been doing together."

Australian Sailing Team technical director Michael Blackburn added, "We're very pleased for Wearny as it puts him back on top, effectively putting an end to a long period that was disrupted by COVID effects.

"However, he still has some work to do in some specific areas to fully round out his performance."

Grae Morris had a big six-race day in the iQFOil class and now sits in third place overall entering the medal series.

"We had a super gusty and shifty 11-25 knots from offshore," said Morris. "I had some good scores and kept it consistent to take me straight in the semi-finals to the medal race series."

Olivia Price and Evie Haseldine qualified for the 49erFX medal race after finishing 10th on Saturday.

"We had some issues with breakages throughout the day and we didn't hit our execution points for nailing our starts well enough so we felt the pain of today a little more because of it," said Price.

Jim Colley and Shaun Connor in Men's 49er skiff put themselves into their medal race by finishing in ninth place overall.

The mixed 470 crew of Nia Jerwood and Conor Nicholas finished their medal race in sixth place.

Lisa Darmanin and Darren Bundock in the mixed Nacra 17 completed their regatta in 16th place.

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