America's Cup heroes Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have taken a huge step towards defending their Olympic 49er title, winning the test event off Enoshima, Japan.
Victory was a good omen for the duo, who won the test event four years ago, then took gold at Rio de Janeiro the following year.
Entering the final medal race on Wednesday night, Burling and Tuke held a 13-point lead over Polish pair Pawel Kolodzinski and Lukasz Przybytek, eighth at Rio and the only other crew with a winning chance.
But their challengers crossed the start-line early and had to double back to clear their penalty. Burling and Tuke simply covered them to finish 16th, enough to secure overall victory.
Across 13 races, they won three and finish in the top four in six other races to finish well clear of their rivals. Britons Dylan Fletcher and Stuart Bithell overhauled Kolodzinski
and Przybytek for second.
"The Poles put themselves in a pretty compromised situation with about 10-15 seconds to go and we took the opportunity to help them over the wrong side of the start-line," said Tuke. "From there, it was quite easy.
"We are really happy to secure that gold medal, which is what we came to do.
"This is a really big one, being the Olympic test event. It's definitely something you try to perform well at."
Burling and Tuke will now take a break from the two-handed class, and return to the America's Cup campaign, before returning for the world 49er championships off Auckland in December.
"We are happy with how we are tracking, but we have a big 12 months coming up and we're really looking forward to the next event we have, which is the worlds back in Auckland," said Tuke.
"It's probably one of the coolest events we have ever done to date, so we are looking forward to that."
Rio silver medallists Alex Maloney and Molly Meech narrowly missed a 49erFX medal at the test event, slipping from third to fourth overall with a seventh-place finish in the final race.
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