PETER BURLING AND CARL EVANS – 2008 NZL 470 OLYMPIC REPS.
PETER BURLING
Started sailing age 6 and racing age 8 in his home town of , NZ.
Competed in Optimist Worlds, Texas 2002 and Spain 2003 age 11 and 12.
Won the NZL Optimist nationals age 12.
Won NZ U19 Starling class Fleetracing and Matchracing nationals twice (age 14 and 15).
Initially helmed the 420 (6th at Worlds age 14 and NZL rep. at ISAF youth worlds) but grew tall so starting crewing with Carl Evans.
Also helmed Elliot 5.9 trailer sailor (won NZ Nationals twice) and competed in Teams Racing for his school who are current Interdominion (AUS / NZL) schools champions.
CARL EVANS
Started sailing at age 10 near home on the Manukau harbour, .
Competed in 2 Optimist worlds, Equator 2004 and Switzerland 2005 age 14 and 15, including helping NZL win the top overall country prize in 2004.
Won the coveted NZ U17 P-class double in 2006 including winning all the open fleet races.
TOGETHER
In the Canary Islands they won the Open 420 Worlds in 2006 (both aged 15 – youngest ever winners) and defended their title in Jan 2007.
Feb 2007 they moved into the Olympic 470 class. At their first major international event – the 470 Europeans in they finished 6th. An 11th place at the 470 Worlds in saw their selection as the NZL 470 reps for the 2008 China Olympics which is their current focus.
Their best result so far in the 470 was 3rd at the Grade1 Hyeres Olympic Classes regatta, April 08.
At 17, they are still both at school. They will be the youngest ever sailors from NZ to compete at an Olympics and are excited about the opportunities they have.
SEPTEMBER UPDATE
1 Sep
We’re back home from the and straight back to school. 15 weeks overseas is a lot to catch up on.
What an amazing time at the Olympics. So much to experience, learn, and see and fun to be had.
As you are probably aware we finished 11th overall of the 29 countries in the men’s 470 class, missing the medal race by just 2 points. An unbelievably close regatta with some crews putting up to 16 years solid sailing on the line, for the 3 medals. All our 10 races were in less than 9 knots, even though the race officer recorded a top gust of 11 knots on day one. The algae was not an issue with up to 1300 fishing boats available each morning to clear up any algae that had escaped past the 20km protection net. We even had a few days of blue sky where we could see to the horizon.
Our black flag disqualification for starting too early in race 5 was a setback. The racing highlight was winning race 9 on the last day being tempered a little by the realization that we had just missed the medal race.
We were able to fit the Opening Ceremony in before racing started – an hour’s flight from to . We thought it was really amazing and didn’t realise we had seen so little of it until we got home and saw TV1’s highlights package.
In our accommodation was perfect - on site (to be turned in to a 5 star hotel after the games) with the food hall on level 2 and the boat park only a few minutes’ walk away. The kiwis even had a whole floor to themselves. Much more posh than the Olympic village.
Watching Tom’s gold medal race was a real highlight and a euphoric experience for all, lifting him and his board up the ramp in celebration. Once we were finished and had everything packed into the container it was back to for 5 days to support the other NZ athletes, see some other sports and do the tourist thing.
We had the opportunity to get inside the Birds Nest stadium to see the men’s 4x100 metre relay (WR for ) and pole-vault. Saw some high diving at the Water Cube. Ben Fouhy and Steven Ferguson racing their kayaks. Men’s hockey final. The highlight probably being the American men’s Basketball team playing for gold against , we managed to sneak into the athletes stand with the NZ girls Basketball players – David Beckham was just in front watching too.
The Great wall, Forbidden City and were all pretty cool.
We would like to say an extra special thank you to Nathan Handley our coach for helping us out with everything we needed. You were awesome.
To our sponsors and supporters – our Olympic campaign would not have been possible without you. Dave Mackay making a special trip to Qingdao, Fernando at Quantum for the extra sails, Musto, YNZ/SPARC/NZ Yachting Trust for funding huge portions of our costs, and all the others that are listed around this newsletter. A huge thank you to you all.
Peter and Carl.
