23 Sep 2014

Burling and Tuke take final silver

1:40 pm on 23 September 2014

New Zealand's world 49er champions Peter Burling and Blair Tuke stamped capped their successful title defence with an emphatic victory in the final medal race in Spain.

New Zealand sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling on the 2012 Olympic medal podium.

New Zealand sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling on the 2012 Olympic medal podium. Photo: PHOTOSPORT

The pair claimed their second straight world championship gold medal with a day to spare yesterday after opening up an unassailable lead on the penultimate day.

The day's result means the Olympic silver medallists finished an impressive 46 points ahead of the second placed Danish crew.

The next best result for New Zealand was Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie who finished second in the 470s, relinquishing the world title they won last year to the Austrian crew.

The New Zealanders had to beat the Austrians across the line to stand atop the podium but crossed in 6th to take claim second place overall.

Racing in a world class fleet of 54 boats all vying for national Olympic qualification, a silver medal here is still a significant achievement and Aleh and Powrie add this to an already impressive year in which they've won gold at three ISAF Sailing World Cup Regattas and also at the Aquece Rio Olympic Test Event sailed in Rio last month.

Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark round out the podium places, taking the bronze medal for Great Britain.

Josh Junior finished fifth and Andrew Murdoch sixth in the Finn.

Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders were fifth in the mixed multi-hull.