NZL 49er- Training continues in Auckland against internationals

by Peter Burling Blair Tuke on 10 Mar 2012
Peter Burling and Blair Tuke update on their 49er campaign heading towards the 2012 Olympics

Training is ramping up nicely with another two overseas 49er crews joining us in NZ this month.

We have just finished training with the Irish 49er team who we hosted in New Zealand for the last 10 days. We learnt a lot from the racing against the Irish boys and it was great fun to have them here in New Zealand. We managed to get 8 sailing days in until the 'weather bomb' struck NZ which interrupted training for a couple of days.

We are now looking forward to training with the Spanish 49er team when they are in Auckland for the Volvo Ocean Race stopover in a few days’ time. We’re looking forward to going out to see the boats come in; it is great for New Zealand to have this race back in town after a 10 year gap from coming to Auckland. The large number of Kiwis across the fleet is pretty cool and it will be great for the profile of sailing in New Zealand.

We have packed and shipped our first 49er boat which will arrive in France soon. In the next couple of weeks we will be sending our Olympic boat straight to Weymouth. Another box ticked on the road to London.

On the 12th April (just over 100 days to go until London Olympics) we will depart and make our way to a World Cup Regatta in the South of France. We will have about a week of build-up before this event which kicks off on the 22nd April. From there we are going to Zadar, Croatia for the 49er World Championships (7-12 May).

You might remember that the last 2012 49er World Champs were in Perth last December ... but the 2012 World Champs are being held only five months later. This is because of the summers in northern and southern hemispheres being 6 months apart. After winning Silver at the Perth Worlds we will again be aiming to earn a medal in Croatia. We can’t wait to get back into the racing.

We have also enjoyed the London athlete workshops in Auckland which every potential Olympic athlete goes to. At this we got to try on the uniforms and meet other athletes from different sports.

142 days to go...