Burling best in the world

Team New Zealand star Peter Burling has been named the best foiling sailor in the world.

Burling picked up the gong from Foiling Week, an organisation that holds foiling forums for innovation in the sport’s biggest development area and also regattas around the world.

Burling won the award on the back of his masterful handling of Team New Zealand’s foiling 50-foot catamaran that won the America’s Cup in Bermuda in June and for his second placing at the Moth world championships in Italy the following month.

Burling’s individual award comes after he was named sailor of the year by World Sailing and just as Team New Zealand have decided not to back his nomination for the sportsman of the year gong at the Halberg Awards, preferring to have the syndicate nominated as a whole for the team of the year category.

‘‘Thanks to the foiling community, it is obviously an immense honour to be given this award,’’ Burling told the awards ceremony in Garda, Italy, via a video message from Cape Town where he has arrived after the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race.

‘‘It has been an incredible year pushing the boundaries with the America’s Cup with the whole team over there, pushing the boats super hard.

‘‘Definitely the improvements we made throughout that cycle were pretty amazing and then to be able to jump on a Moth and have a good bit of fun with so many other people doing the same thing and enjoying foiling around in Lake Garda, was pretty cool as well.’’