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Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are as motivated as ever to win another gold medal at next year's Tokyo Olympics and will put together a plan that gives them the best chance to achieve that.
The six-time 49er world champions and defending Olympic champions felt they were in a good place to perform well in Tokyo in 2020 but have had to reshift their focus to 2021.
It was four years ago this week that Burling and Tuke won gold by a record points margin in the 49er at the Rio Olympics but ambitions of repeating that in Tokyo this year were put on hold due to Covid-19.
"We were pretty geared up for this year," Tuke told the Shirley Robertson podcast recently. "You just have to take it in your stride and refocus and reprioritise.
"We are still very hungry to win another gold medal for New Zealand next year and we are going to put a campaign together that puts us in the best place possible to try to do that."
Listen to Blair Tuke on the Shirley Robertson podcast
New Zealand's Olympic class sailors have had to adapt their training and racing due to the pandemic, with international travel presently off the table.
Burling and Tuke, along with Finn class sailors and Emirates Team New Zealand teammates Josh Junior and Andy Maloney, have thrown themselves into the defence of the America's Cup.
They also recently announced the launch of a New Zealand SailGP team to add another complexity to their busy lives but the pair have constantly illustrated their ability to juggle multiple projects and still perform at the highest level. They won the last two 49er world championships and also won last year's 49er European championships as well as the Olympic test event.
Burling has already been named to compete in his fourth Olympics - he competed in the 2008 Games in the men's 470 before teaming up with Tuke in the 49er - while Tuke will go to his third.
The pair collected silver at the 2012 London Olympics and Tuke revealed an occasion at those Games that struck a chord with them.
"Jo [Aleh] and Polly [Powrie] got the gold medal [there] and had the national anthem," Tuke explained. "Seeing the girls on the top step of the podium really inspired us to want to be there for the next cycle."
They certainly put themselves in the best place to achieve that, going virtually unbeaten in the four year cycle leading up to Rio. It also saw them named as flagbearers for the New Zealand team at the opening ceremony - something Tuke described as "one of the proudest moments of our lives" - before they went on to win gold by a record 43-point margin.
"Looking back, what we are most proud of is not necessarily the gold medal but the performance we put down when it matters most," Tuke said. "When you go into any competition, all you can do is your best and that was a pretty complete performance by us.
"It was as good an event as we had put together and the people around us didn't and at some stage they started concentrating on the other medals."
- Photo: Sailing Energy / World Sailing
