Peter Shrubb, rear commodore of the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, says he is honoured to have been appointed as chief umpire of medal racing at next summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“I am obviously very thankful to have the opportunity to work again at the Olympics and this time be the chief umpire of the medal races which is quite an honour,” Shrubb, who also officiated at the 2012 Olympics in England, said.

“This is a big deal for me and my sailing portfolio and it’s amazing that no matter how small your Island or country is there’s still an avenue to get to places that you would typically think that only big countries like the United States could put out race officials like this.

“Any country can do it. Just put your mind to it and get down to work.”

Shrubb will be the chief umpire of medal racing on a jury that also includes Bonneau Bernard, of France, who is named as chairman and was chairman of the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race. Jan Stage, of Denmark, has been named the vice-chairman.

Headed by ISAF technical delegates Alastair Fox and Scott Perry, the team of 26 international technical officials will be present throughout the Olympic Sailing Competition ensuring the fairness of the competition and a level playing field for the 380 sailors to compete on.

The race management team will be headed by Nino Shmueli, from Israel, who was the ISAF’s principal race officer at the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships and at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Qingdao.

“The medal race is the one last go for broke kind of race and all the medals are on the line and you have to make sure you do everything right and not deprive anybody of a medal, so it’s quite a challenge,” Shrubb, who officiated at the 2007 America’s Cup in Valencia, Spain, said.

“One thing about the medal race is that they (race committee) want to have a winner as soon as the boat crosses the finish line so the media and everybody else knows who the medal winners are.

So, we deal with all protests and everything on the water which is like umpiring a match race but with ten boats instead of just two.

“We are going to have five umpire boats on the water, which I will be in charge of, to deal with all incidents on the water and when the race is finished it’s finished and basically the results will be there and will stand.”