Vote for your favourite sporting personality

Blair Tuke (left) and Chris Sharp (right) share trade secrets at the Far North Sports Awards in Paihia earlier this month. The two sailors are both on the shortlist of the Northern Advocate 2016 People's Choice Award.

Northland public have their say on the best parts of the sporting year by voting in the Northern Advocate 2016 People's Choice Award, which is being held in conjunction with Sport Northland.

This year's focus is Your Favourite Olympic Moment with two Far North sportsmen featuring among the handful of Northland athletes which brought home four medals from the Rio Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Far North nominees are as follows.

Blair Tuke: Kerikeri's Blair Tuke and sailing partner Peter Burling went one better than their silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics when they brought home gold in the 49er skiff sailing class.

Possibly no one in the New Zealand Olympic unit had more pressure on them, but it did not show as they took out the Olympic regatta by 43 points.

Under the guidance of their coach Hamish Willcox, they carried out the assignment with their usual calm approach. They excelled under expectation. Their Rio sequence of results: 1, 1, 5, 2, 7, 6, 2, 3, 1, 3, 5, 4; guaranteed their medal before the final race.

They could have just shown up and had a nice, gentle sail around Guanabara Bay to confirm their Olympic medal, but the pair was not happy just to take part in the race, instead dominating the fleet, leading the race from the start to finish to take out the regatta over Australian pair Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, who beat the Kiwis for gold in London four years ago.

Chris Sharp: Northland para-sailor Chris Sharp and sailing partners Richard Dodson and Andrew May, was incredibly unlucky to miss out on a medal during the Paralympic sailing regatta, finishing fourth on a cruel count back.

The trio competed in the three-person Keelboat (Sonar) class. Sharp, who became a paraplegic after a motorbike accident four years ago, went into the last day only six points separated the six top crews.

The medal race saw the kiwis in eighth around the first mark, however they then gained on downwind to take first place by the bottom mark. They held most of the race until USA secured silver by overtaking them on the last upwind leg, pipping them at the finish line by one second.

This left New Zealand in third place until Canada overtook the French on the last short reach to the finish beating them by one second. The tight finish meant New Zealand were on equal points in third position with the Canadians, but lost on a countback because Canada won one more race.

The other Whangarei-based contenders are, Cameron Leslie: Northland's sole gold medal winner from the Rio Paralympics. Leslie, who has a quadruple limb deficiency, led from the front and raced clear to win at a canter with an astonishing time of 2:23.12, breaking a world record he had set mere months before.

In securing gold, Leslie achieved a rare three-peat after winning the event in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012 and earned New Zealand's fifth gold medal; Emma Foy: Northland's most successful Paralympian. Competing as a tandem pair, Foy and her pilot Laura Thompson brought home a silver medal in the women's B 3000m Individual Pursuit and a bronze in the Women's Road Race B; and, Brooke Neal and Stacey Michelsen: Northland hockey stars Stacey Michelsen and Brooke Neal were on hand to inflict a 4-2 win over trans-Tasman rivals Australia in the quarter-finals of the Rio Olympics to give the Black Sticks an opportunity to earn a medal (unfortunately, New Zealand lost 3-0 in their semi-final to eventual champions Great Britain and 2-1 in the bronze medal match to Germany.

- In the Sports Personality of the Year, previous winners were basketballer Pero Cameron in 2012, Colin Thorne in 2014 and Vicky, Kelly and Amanda Wilson in Equestrian. To vote, text NAD and your choice to 021 241 4568 or email competitions@northernadvocate.co.nz . One vote per person. Voting closes midnight November 26. The winner will be revealed at the CSG Konica Minolta Northland Sports Awards in Whangarei on December 4.