The youngest sailors ever to represent New Zealand at an Olympic Games have been selected to compete at Beijing in August.
Seventeen-year-old pair Carl Evans and Peter Burling have proven themselves as New Zealand's top 470 performers, having impressed selectors with a string of top performances at all
the recent major international events.
Most recently they finished 11th at the 470 world championships in Melbourne.
The pair stepped up to the 470 class less than twelve months ago from the 420, where they were reining World Champions.
Sailors David Barnes and Murray Jones were both 18 when they were members of the yachting team for the Montreal Olympics in 1976.
However, they were both selected as reserves and neither actually competed at these Games.
Bruce Kendall turned 20 just before competing in boardsailing at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, winning bronze in the Windglider class.
New Zealand's youngest Olympian was swimmer Rebecca Perrott, who was 15 years old when she competed at Montreal.
Seasoned yachtsmen Hamish Pepper, 36, and Carl Williams, 26, also had their Games spots confirmed today in the Star class.
Beijing will be Pepper's third Olympics after Atlanta in 1996 and Athens four years ago.
Pepper and Williams won the Star world championships in 2006.
The first members of the yachting team to Beijing 2008 were selected late last year.
They were former Olympic champion Barbara Kendall (boardsailing), Tom Ashley (boardsailing), Jo Aleh (Laser radial), Andrew Murdoch (Laser) and Dan Slater (Finn).
Chief executive of Yachting New Zealand Des Brennan welcomed the latest announcements and had his sights set on a strong performance in Qingdao from the New Zealand yachting team in five months time.
"We have remained true to nominating only sailors who are genuine medal prospects," Brennan said.
"We have a very exciting team."
- NZPA
