The pair had been assured a gold medal after Monday’s race but the victory was sealed today.

Australian Olympic sailor Outteridge has been hoping to make up for Beijing when he and crew-mate Ben Austin capsized close to the finish line and slipped from gold-medal position to fifth.

Since then, Outteridge and childhood friend Jensen have teamed up and won three world titles to make them Australian gold medal favourites coming for London 2012.

“It’s more a relief than anything. We’ve worked so hard for so long for this,” said 26-year-old Outteridge after winning his regatta earlier in the week.

“To come so close last time and miss out was really tough.

“I’ve been sailing with ‘Goobs’ [Jensen] now for four years and we’ve been an unstoppable team. Everyone said we were the favourites and don’t let the country down, but we’ve done the job and we’ve done Australia proud.

“It’s been an amazing day for Australian sailing. We watched Tom [Slingsby]’s race and he was in control, and we got out there and he’d already won. We had a few moments with him and then we had to do our job.”

.New Zealand sailaing pair Blair Tuke and Peter Burling took the silver medal while Denmark’s Allan Norregaard and Peter Lang claimed bronze.