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Watch: Peter Burling and Blair Tuke pumped for Olympics and America's Cup

July 25, 2018

The Kiwi sailing heroes said they wanted to be sure they could give their all in both events before committing.

Kiwi sailing duo Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have confirmed they've committed for both the upcoming Olympic Games and America's Cup.

Burling and Tuke will look to defend both their 49ers class gold medal from Rio and the Auld Mug with Team New Zealand after deciding they could compete in both disciplines once again.

"We wanted to really make sure we could give both the Olympics campaign and the America's Cup everything we've got," Tuke said.

"That's why we waited until after the Volvo Ocean Race, until we had a bit of time off, to fully commit but it was always the plan to try and do it - we just wanted to make sure we could do it on our terms."

The pair recently wrapped up their global adventure in the Volvo Ocean Race but came up short with Dongfeng Race Team pipping Tuke's MAPFRE and Burling's Team Brunel in the final leg.

After the race finished, the pair admitted they got together and discussed how they would go about the next three years and working towards both campaigns.

"For the Olympics side, we've got a few other people in our team that we talk with as well and then it was just trying to figure out how to tie it all together," Burling said.

Burling said despite the halved preparation time for Tokyo in comparison to Rio, the pair have a clear goal going forward.

"We've only got two years to go to the Olympics now... it's definitely going to be a challenge but that's why we took a little while to decide we had enough stuff in place that we thought we'd give ourselves a fair shot.

"We're not going there to make up numbers or anything like that - we're going there to try and win a gold for New Zealand and defend the America's Cup."

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