Luke Patience secures World Championship silver
by Claire Harrower 12 Dec 2011 18:27 GMT
Silver for Patience and Bithell at the 470 worlds in Perth 2011 © Richard Langdon / Ocean Images
Scottish sailor, Luke Patience has sailed his way to a silver medal at the Perth 2011 Sailing World Championships. Along with Stuart Bithell, Luke Patience led the medal race from start to finish in the men’s 470 class out in Australia to secure their second place overall in style at the championships. The winners of the gold medal were Australia’s Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page.
The pair teamed up in 2009 and has been training extremely hard to prepare for what was a very important World Championship ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games. Selection has not yet been made for the men’s 470 class for the GB Olympic Team but Patience and Bithell will be hoping that their silver medal will help their cause.
“It’s been a really long week and me and Stuart have worked so hard for this regatta. So much of our training for the last three or four months has been towards this week.”
“I know we’re not standing on the gold position on the podium, and that’s what we intended to be, but it’s been a hard week and the Australians have sailed fantastically, so we’re happy to be stood on the podium with a silver medal” said Patience.
It has been a tricky week of racing for all of the competitors with various reported shark sightings and also race cancellations due to electrical storms. Both Luke and Stuart did not let any of these upsets stand in their way of delivering a fantastic result.
Charlotte Dobson is another Scottish sailor who was competing at the World Championships and is also looking to secure a place in the GB Team for London 2012 in the Women’s Laser Radial class. Charlotte finished 16th overall and would have been a little disappointed not to have made the final medal race.
For more a full set of results you can visit www.perth2011.com/results
For more information about RYA Scotland please visit the website www.ryascotland.org.uk