BLAIR TUKE: Silver Sailor

Sandy Myhre manages to prise sailing silver medalist Blair Tuke away from adoring fans long enough to ask what being an Olympian has meant for him.

Blair Tuke had two world championship titles when he was still a teenager and now, at 23 and with Peter Burling, he has won silver and New Zealand's 100th medal at the London Olympics. You have to wonder whether he was a tad precocious as a child?

His grandmother Maxine says certainly and the young man himself laughs and says probably. He was born in Kawakawa and went to Riverside Primary before Kerikeri High School where his reports said if he paid more attention in class and stopped talking so much, he'd do better. And just look where that's got him.

"I started from an early age playing rugby with my brothers on the lawn and wanted to be the best. I didn't always want to be in the classroom because I was thinking more about sailing or how the rugby game at lunch time was going to go."

The family moved to Auckland for his fifth form year and he went to St Kentigern College and knuckled down enough to pass the classroom tests - in between sailing and playing rugby. But he wasn't cut out for academia and knew it so half way through the next year he started an electrical apprenticeship. His new boss had no idea how much sailing meant him but he was certainly about to find out.

"He was pretty cool about it," says Blair laconically, "and backed me the whole way. Now he's really proud of me."

Blair Tuke had other mentors along the way like (board sailor) Bruce Kendall who showed him how to create balance in his life - and others like Aaron McIntosh and Mike Sanderson - and that's a very truncated version of why there was a street parade in Kerikeri in August that made national television news.

"We didn't know what to expect. None of us thought it was going to be that big, school kids, lots of people from town who had helped me along the way and to see the joy on their faces was pretty awesome, really proud to be from a small town that gets behind us that much."

They were swamped by kids in the Kerikeri Domain with little fingers wanting to touch the solid silver medal which is surprisingly heavy at nearly 500 grams. It doesn't hurt his neck to carry it though. That was already sore from partying for a few days after the medal was won and then bus rides and a long flight. And apart from actually competing there were other new experiences to behold in London and the Olympic Village was just one.

"There are people walking around who are eight feet tall and those like the British synchronized swimmers who are tiny and wear lots of make up, it's really crazy. There are 15,000 people there and everything takes a long time. We had to walk 15 minutes just to get to the food hall.

"After our event we went back to the village and in the food hall we started a big chant with the Canadians and the Dutch and then suddenly there were a few thousand people doing it, a great atmosphere."

He peppers his speech a lot with 'cool', or 'pretty cool' or 'amazingly cool' and the closing ceremony where he got to meet other athletes including some of the Kiwis was all of those.

"It was the biggest stadium I'd ever seen and everyone was yahooing and in really good spirits. The music faced out and not in towards the centre so when Oasis was on it was the only time we could fully hear the words. We were right up the front and it was a nice way to finish off."

There are more ceremonies before he 'does' Europe with a Kontiki Tour before heading to San Francisco to crew on an AC72, one of Team New Zealand's smaller boats. He and Peter Burling have much to discuss these days so Blair Tuke is still talking only this time, teachers please note, he is paying a tad more attention.