Sailing’s hard line pays off on podium

Yachting New Zealand’s controversial approach to Olympic selections has netted its biggest medal haul in history.

The Kiwi sailors yesterday wrapped up a brilliant campaign on the water with three crews taking medals from four medal races.

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke made their Olympic champion status official in the 49er class, winning their medal race in emphatic style. With a 34- point advantage over the rest of the fleet heading into the race, the four- time world champions needed only to turn up and complete a victory lap around Guanabara Bay to confirm the gold. But the impressive pair wanted to prove once more why they have not been beaten in a major regatta over the past quadrennial. They led the race from start to finish, to take out the regatta by a stunning 43 points.

Earlier in the day, the women’s 470 pairing of Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie completed an incredible comeback to take silver after being ranked in seventh position heading into the final day of qualifying races. Two disqualifications earlier in the series ruled out any hope Team Jolly had of defending their Olympic title, but the tenacious pair kept fighting and pulled off a brilliant run of results to get back in the medal hunt.

The big surprise of the day came in the 49erFX — a new class in the Olympic sailing programme this year — where Alex Maloney and Molly Meech came within two seconds of taking the gold medal.

After 12 races and four days of sailing, just one point separated the top four boats in the fleet, leaving all the podium spots up for grabs in the medal race.

Needing a big performance in the final race to secure a medal, Maloney and Meech gave themselves every chance of winning gold, only to be chased down on the final leg by the Brazilian crew, who were wellattuned to the conditions on Guanabara Bay.

It brought New Zealand’s total medal tally in the sailing to four, after Meech’s older brother Sam won bronze in the Laser class on Wednesday.

There were pleasing results elsewhere as well, with the Nacra 17 pairing of Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders just missing the podium on Wednesday, despite winning the medal races.

In all seven boats, seven medal races. One gold, two silver and a bronze.

It surpasses New Zealand’s previous best sailing return of three medals at the 1984 Games, where Russell Coutts ( Finn) and the Tornado pairing of Chris Timms and Rex Sellers picked up goldand Bruce Kendall collected bronze in the boardsailing class.

Yet Yachting New Zealand, who needed to deliver three medals from these Games to maintain their funding from High Performance Sport NZ, came under fire for their selections after opting not to send representatives in three classes.

New Zealand qualified spots in the Laser Radial class and the men’s and women’s RS: X in the first round, but the national body rejected those spots.

All three sailors were ranked in the top 16 in the world — the NZOC’s baseline standard — but they were deemed not to have reached Yachting New Zealand’s standards as being medal capable.

The national body will view their success in Rio as vindication for their hardline stance.