24 wins in row: Can anyone beat Burling and Tuke?
by Rob Kothe 28 Mar 2016 18:16 BST
28 March 2016
Burling and Tuke at ISAF Sailing World Cup Mallorca © Jesus Renedo / Sofia
New Zealand sailors Pete Burling and Blair Tuke, were the training partners of Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, the Australian 49er Olympic Gold Medallists and the Kiwis collected the Silver medal.
While Outteridge and Jensen switched straight into America's Cup racing with the Artemis Team, Burling and Tuke concentrated on 49er racing with great results and they have absolutely dominated the class ever since.
Very experienced campaigners at a young age,Burling was just 17 when he sailed in Beijing 2008 in the 470 Class, they have carried all before them this quadrennium. The extremely talented duo are the the first sailors to win four consecutive 49er class World Championships (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016).
As of March 2016 they have been undefeated in the 49er since the London Olympics - winning 24 consecutive regattas.
Only in 2004 did the young New Zealanders seriously engage with the America¡s Cup scene. Burling is the helmsman for Emirates Team New Zealand's 2017 Americas Cup campaign, but does not have the onerous skippers duties.
In November 2015 the International Sailing Federation announced that Burling and Tuke were the ISAF Rolex World Male Sailors of the year.
Now just months before the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, the question is can anyone threatened their hold on the class in Rio.
The pair considered most likely are their former tutors Outteridge and Jensen. They show flashes of their old form but they are not sailing consistently, today in Palma, Mallorca at the Princesa Sofia Regatta, in strong conditions they scored a 12th in the first race, won the second and had an 11th in the third race to be 11th overall.
We talked today to Nathan Outteridge
The first and most obvious question, about the Class leaders... Did you teach them too much?
"Obviously we did. Leading up to the London Olympics we were helping them and that was just going to result in us with a gold medal with no thought of what was happening after London because we had no intention of continuing on to Rio.
"We were living in the 2012 quad and obviously all the things that we worked in and developed they have taken and kept pushing forward with and have had a lot more time to keep developing compared with what we have had. The honest answer is yes we taught them too much for 2016 but it was a perfect set up for 2012."
"But going forward we know what they are doing and we know what we need to do. It's just about going and actually doing it and that requires time and in the last three years we haven't had any time.
"But between now and the Games we have time available to us and we still have commitments with Artemis but we have got a lot more time now to focus on 49er sailing than we have ever had so we are hoping to see the improvement that is required between now and then Games.
"We are starting to up the time in the boat a bit more than we have been able to. We have got Palma at the moment and then Barcelona and then we have a little break and then we go back to AC worlds in Bermuda and then we are focusing a lot of time in Rio from May right through until the games begin.
"Of course the the weather is very different in summer as it is to winter there, so it is as much as just getting used to the environment in Rio I guess as the sailing conditions.
"If you want sailing conditions, you have got to be there July and August but obviously there isn't another July or August before the Games now so we have done all our time in the last couple of years and so we are just going to try and get there and get all our equipment sorted. We have sent all our good stuff there now and just waiting for the winter to get right so we can go sailing.
"This cycle, I think what has happened is that the fleet has gotten smarter and faster. Everyone probably learnt a lot in what we were doing in the lead up to London and learned a lot about how our training worked with the Kiwi's and everyone is focusing on the boats being a bit more and I think the fleet, if you are not in the class and you are not sailing all the time you don't get to make advantage of your equipment.
"I think we have got a good bunch of stuff that we have been collecting over the last three or four years and we haven't been necessarily been showing up to regattas with our race equipment. As nice as it would be to come and use that extra gear we have been racing the fleet and working on our racing skills.
"The plan is we get to Rio with all our mains we have been stashing away and rigs we have been stashing away with that sort of up our sleeves. It is easy to say that but it is about putting that in place and if you don't use the equipment enough you also don't know how to use it properly.
"The way that the year works in that it is just logistically difficult to do any more events after April if you want to have any equipment in Rio and you can't be in two places at once and develop and do the Cup stuff. We have made an effort to do all our racing at the start of his year so we did Miami, the Worlds, Palma and the Barcelona for the Europeans and then all of our effort will be in Rio."
A lot of work to be done!!!