Tauranga Olympic sailor Peter Burling and Kerikeri's Blair Tuke have strengthened their second place standing in the 49er event at the London Olympics but the leaders Australians, Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen have extended their lead.

Peter and Blair widened the gap to between themselves and third placed Britain to 26 points with two races and the double-point medal race remaining in the competition.

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke compete in the Men's Skiff (49er) event in The London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition.

But the Australians won both races overnight to extend their lead from nine to 20 points.

"We just didn't get off the start line very well and made a couple of bad decisions up the first beat," says Tuke after their second race.

"Once you get behind in such a high quality fleet it's hard to catch up but we kept chipping away. You never know what's going to happen."

The pair has to remain focused on themselves rather than the world champion Australians in the final two fleet races tonight, says helmsman Peter Burling.

Australia has 44 points with the Kiwis on 64 and Britain on 90.

"We're just trying to put together a couple more solid races and give ourselves a good shot going into the medal race," says Peter.

In the women's 470, Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie dropped to second after a non-counting 10th and a fourth in shifty winds, but are only one point behind the British duo of Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark.

A tight battle is in store with just six points separating the top four crews with four races plus the medal race remaining.

Last night was a rest day for the Men's 470 and Andrew Murdoch. Andrew Murdoch will sail in tonight's Laser Medal race while the 470 Women enjoy a day off.

Dan Slater in the Finn and Hamish Pepper with Jim Turner in the Star crossing the final finish line in second in their medal races, improving their standings. Hamish and Jim jumped up from eighth to fifth overall, and Dan moved from ninth to seventh.

Board sailor JP Tobin qualified for Tuesday's final double point medal race ranked seventh overall. The gold medallist has already been decided based on the overall points score, JP's training partner and friend Dorian Van Rijsselberge of the Netherlands. Dorian is coached by New Zealand's Sydney 2000 Bronze Medallist Aaron McIntosh.

Current Standings- Day 8 – August 5^th, 2012

2^nd Jo Aleh/Polly Powrie (470 W) after 6 of 11 races (2, 6, 2, 5, 10, 4)

2^nd Peter Burling/Blair Tuke (49er) after 13 of 16 races (9, 7, 1, 7, 3, 5, 9, 11, 7, 2, 1, 2, 15)

3^rd Paul Snow Hansen/ Jason Saunders (470 M) after 6 of 11 races (28DSQ, 3, 5, 4, 16, 3)

5^th Andrew Murdoch (Laser) after 10 of 11 races (12, 8, 17, 18, 1, 7, 13, 15, 3, 3)

7^th JP Tobin (RS:X) after 10 of 11 races (15, 4, 3, 7, 8, 8, 12, 6, 17, 17)

Final Standings

5^th Hamish Pepper/ Jim Turner (Star)

7^th Dan Slater (Finn)

9^th Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen, Susannah Pyatt (Match Racing)

20^th Sara Winther (Laser Radial)