Tauranga sailor Peter Burling and Blair Tuke from Kerikeri received New Zealand's 100th Olympic medal last night presented to them by Barbara Kendall, who won gold at Barcelona in 1992 for board sailing.
Blair Tuke and Peter Burling won a silver medal in the Men's Skiff (49er) at the London 2012 Olympics. Photo: onEdition.
The pair's silver medal is New Zealand's 19th Olympic silver to go with 40 golds and 41 bronzes taking the total tally to 100.
The 49er sailors secured their second place spot two days ago, but had to sail out the medal race to officially take silver behind the Australian crew.
Burling, 21, and Tuke, 23, finished second in the medal race, while gold medallists Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen of Australia were fourth. Denmark claimed the bronze medal by finishing third.
Burling says it's nice to have a tangible reward for four years of hard work, and he again paid tribute to their training partners, Outteridge and Jensen, for helping to lift their standard above the rest of the world.
The medal was presented by Barbara Kendall who is now a member of the International Olympic Committee.
The Tauranga Boys' College sailing team in 2005 featuring future Olympians Peter Burling and Jason Saunders (both centre wearing hats).
Former Boys' College student Burling is competing in his second Olympics after sailing in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 as a 17-year-old.
Tauranga Boys' College principal Robert Mangan is not surprised by Peter Burling's success, saying the former school sports captain was an outstanding student – balancing sports excellence with academic success.
'He was outstanding as a young man - to go to the (Beijing) Olympics aged 17 is an outstanding achievement and suggested there was probably more to come.”
Robert described Peter, who became the youngest sailor to represent New Zealand at the Olympics in 2008, as a 'fine young man”.
Peter began sailing at the club in Optimists at seven-years-old, while Jason started racing from the age of eight.
Peter captained the college sailing team, which won the national secondary sailing championships in 2007 and 2008.
The team, which included fellow Tauranga Olympic sailor Jason Saunders, won the trans-Tasman Inter-Dominion secondary schools team sailing championships in 2008.
Tauranga Yacht and Powerboat Club manager Christine Headey says members were very excited about Peter's success and had their fingers crossed for a bronze for fellow member Jason Saunders.
Christine is expecting some members to celebrate the sailors' successes at the club on Friday with a replay of races, but will wait for the sailors to return for the major celebration.
Meanwhile the 470 Women's pairing of Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie have guaranteed themselves at least silver if not better, when their medal race is sailed on Friday.
'It looks like it's all on for the medal race” said Jo Aleh after sailing.
They are tied on equal points for first place overall, and have a large buffer on the third placed team.
And regarding the possibility to medal she said: 'We can't really think about it until it's all over, we've still got one more race”, although she sounded eager to do Peter and Blair up one.
'They got silver; we'll try to do better.”
The 470 medal races on Thursday (for the men) and Friday (for the women) will be the final two races sailed by the NZ Olympic Sailing Team at London 2012.
Current Standings- Day 11 – August 8th , 2012
1st = Jo Aleh/ Polly Powrie (470 W) after 8 of 11 races (2, 6, 2, 5, 10, 4, 1, 1, 2, 18)
5th Paul Snow Hansen/ Jason Saunders (470 M) after 10 of 11 races (28DSQ, 3, 5, 4, 16, 3, 7, 9, 13, 12)
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