Rio Olympics 2016: NZ sailors Peter Burling, Blair Tuke claim gold in 49er class
Kiwi sailors Peter Burling and Blair Tuke stitch up gold in the Olympic 49er fleet ahead of the final medal race.
New Zealand sailors have had a stellar day on the Rio waters with Peter Burling and Blair Tuke guaranteeing 49er gold and Sam Meech winning a historic bronze in the Laser class.
Four-time world champions Burling and Tuke continued their dominance of the men's skiff fleet and have an impregnable 34-point lead going into Friday's medal race. That will be a formality with the celebrated pair completing their four-year assignment to turn London silver into Rio gold.
They showed their class on Wednesday by finishing off fleet racing by staying out of trouble and taking third, fifth, and fourth in the last of the fleet races.
That was playing out while Meech collected the first medal for the well-funded sailing programme with an impressive race in the Laser division. Meech's bronze represents New Zealand's first medal in this hugely popular class.
Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have proven to be in a class of their own in the 49er fleet at the Rio Olympics.
READ MORE:
* Full coverage: Rio Olympics - day 11
* Carrington powers to gold in K1 200m
* Sailor Sam Meech wins NZ's first Rio bronze
* Nick Willis progresses into 1500m semis
* NZ runner Nikki Hamblin falls in 5000m heats
But no Kiwi sailors – and possibly any New Zealand athlete at Rio – had more pressure on them than Burling and Tuke.
They had only lost one regatta in the four years between Games making them the hottest of favourites.
Turning that dominance into gold under the heat of Olympics battle through 12 fleet races was another matter.
But, under the guidance of their coach Hamish Willcox, they carried out the assignment with their usual calm approach. They excelled under expectation.
Their Rio sequence of results was: 1, 1, 5, 2, 7, 6, 2, 3, 1, 3, 5, 4.
They completed that with some extra responsibilities at these Games. Burling and Tuke are the New Zealand team's co-captains in Rio.
It is the fourth time athletes with that role have gone on to win gold at the same Games.
The others were middle distance runners Jack Lovelock (1936) and Peter Snell (1964), and canoeist Ian Ferguson (1988).
Burling and Tuke were eagerly waiting the medal ceremony to ice the occasion and seal the assignment.
"We took the silver medal back to New Zealand and probably didn't realise until then what it meant to the country," Burling said of their second placing as a new combination four eyars ago.
"We had a few months off and from there the desire to give gold a crack was pretty much what drove us.
"We're super proud that we've managed to achieve that although I don't think we'll really realise what we've done until we have the medals around our necks.
"We've put down a performance we knew we were capable of, it was exactly what we wanted to do.
"We were super happy with how we started off. From there we were able to chip away and deal with whatever was thrown at us."
There will be no rest for the pair who are the current world sailors of the year.
They will immediately rejoin Team New Zealand's campaign to win the America's Cup with Burling on the helm of the syndicate's catamarans heading into the showdown in Bermuda next year.
Team New Zealand were quick to acknowledge the efforts of their young stars: "A four year goal has been well and truly achieved today. Well done boys," the syndicate said.
Team New Zealand signed Burling and Tuke after their silver medal effort in London and have supported their Olympics programme while initiating them into the hurly-burly of the America's Cup.
Burling is eager to get behind the wheel of the syndicate's recently launched test boat.
Sign up here for the Rio Olympics: Going for Gold newsletter
- with NZN
Blair Tuke and Peter Burling carried the New Zealand flag at the Rio Olympics opening ceremony.
- Stuff
Comments