OLYMPIC GOLD SECURED BY BURLING AND TUKE IN RIO

Emirates Team New Zealand sailors Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have secured the Olympic Gold Medal at Rio 2016 today, with tomorrows double points medal race to spare.

The duo let their intentions be known from the start by winning the first two races of the Olympic regatta, and from there have remained completely dominant throughout with seven top three finishes out of the total 12 races. 

Their lowest placing  and discard placing was a 7th in the fifth race of the series.

Burling and Tuke have secured the gold medal before the start of tomorrow’s medal race by finishing the penultimate day with an unassailable 34 point lead over the German crew of Erik Heil and Thomas Ploessel who are in silver medal position heading in to the final race, with Australians Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen - the defending Olympic champions back in third.

The gold medal marks the successful achievement of a four year goal Burling and Tuke set for themselves having won the silver medal in the 49er class in London in 2012.

Since then the pair have been a level above their competition winning all but one regatta since the previous Olympics four years ago at London 2012

Their performance has been typical under the watchful eye of coach Hamish Wilcox, a calm and clinical performance on world sports biggest stage, which skipper Peter Burling describes is what its all about. “All the hard work we have done over the past four years is paying off and we managed to put it down on the day, which is exactly what we came here for.”

Tuke continued, “We are over the moon for it all to come together today, still with the race to spare is just unreal. We are really really stoked right now.”