SAILING stars Luke Patience, Stuart Bithell, Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark could crown the Weymouth and Portland Olympic regatta with a double gold haul today.
Patience and Bithell joined Poole’s match racers in seeing their 470 medal race abandoned due to lack of breeze yesterday.
And that means that the duo will join fellow 470 crew Mills and Clark on the water today as both crews go for Olympic gold in a medal race double-header.
The men’s race is now scheduled to take place at 12pm on the spectator Nothe course, with the women following at 1pm. The British men are guaranteed at least a silver medal but are only four points behind Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page (Australia) in first.
Mills and Clark, meanwhile, are tied neck and neck with New Zealand at the top of the women’s leaderboard with at least a bronze already in the bag.
Patience insisted he and Bithell would not be affected by the enforced delay.
He said: “We have no pressure and it’s a win-win situation. It’s certainly not a problem for Stuart and I. Stuart was just saying earlier that this is our home and we have lived here for five years and we will live here once this is over so it’s no skin off our noses, as we’ve got nowhere else to be!”
Bithell added last night: “With the high pressures and the thermals it’s hard to predict exactly what is going to happen but I do believe tomorrow is going to be much better in terms of forecast.
“We will wake up expecting to race as we did this morning and hopefully the race officer can get a race in for us. It could be a golden day for Team GB.”
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