Bay athletes take top honours at Halberg Awards

Lisa Carrington won the Supreme Halberg Award. Photo/FIle

The 54th Halberg Awards were a triumph for Bay of Plenty sport with four major awards going to Bay Olympians Lisa Carrington, Mahe Drysdale and Peter Burling.

Carrington, 27, was tonight awarded New Zealand's highest sports honour, the Supreme Halberg Award, after earlier winning the High Performance Sport New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year award.

The flatwater canoe star, who was born in Tauranga and educated in Whakatane, won Sportswoman of the Year ahead of golfer Lydia Ko and Rio silver medallists Luuka Jones, Tauranga's canoe slalom paddler, and shot putter Dame Valerie Adams.

In Rio, Carrington won her second K1 200m gold and a bronze in the 500m distance to become one of four Kiwis who have won more than one medal at a single Olympic Games.

In winning the Supreme Award she gained the judges' favour ahead of Sportsman of the Year Mahe Drysdale, Team of the Year Peter Burling and Blair Tuke and Disabled Sportsperson of the Year Liam Malone.

Her coach, Gordon Walker, was named Buddle Findlay Coach of the Year.

Peter Burling, left and Blair Tuke. Photo/File

Burling and Tuke claimed the Team award from Olympic gold medallist rowing pair Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, Team Sprint cyclists Eddie Dawkins, Ethan Mitchell and Sam Webster, and the 470 sailing crew of Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie.

Tauranga's Burling and Tuke, from Kerikeri, won gold in the 49er skiff sailing regatta with unprecedented ease. Their 43-point winning margin across 13 races is the largest of any Olympic sailing event since the modern scoring system was introduced in 1968.

Burling, 26, and Tuke, 27, were given the honour of leading the Kiwi team into the opening ceremony as flag bearers.

The victory completed a record run of success since they won silver at the London Olympics in 2012. They were crowned world champions in all four years since London and won all 28 of the major regattas in the 49er class.

Mahe Drysdale. Photo/File

Drysdale, 38, like Burling a former Tauranga Boys' College student, also had fierce competition to get past to win the Sportsman of the Year award.

The champion single skulls rower, who won gold at Rio to back up his gold in London, won the award ahead of Rio medallists shot putter Tom Walsh and 1500m runner Nick Willis, and world heavyweight boxing champion Joseph Parker.

It was Drysdale's fifth title to make him the most awarded Sportsman of the Year since the Halberg Awards began in 1987.

"All the winners and finalists deserve to be recognised for the hard work they put into making us all proud of their achievements in 2016," said Halberg Disability Sport Foundation chief executive Shelley McMeeken.