Great Britain's Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell were "primed and ready to attack" on Thursday as they looked to take the gold in the men's 470 class.
The pair mathematically assured themselves of at least a silver medal on Tuesday, having amassed a large enough points margin heading into Thursday afternoon's medal race to be sure that the third-placed crew, Argentina, could not catch them.
Patience and Bithell, though, still had eyes on gold, which was on course to go to Australia's Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page.
The world champions had a four-point lead but the British pair promised to attack as they looked to take gold, which would need them to finished ahead of the Australians with at least one boat in between them.
"We are primed and ready to attack - we are ready," Bithell said. "It's absolutely certain that they will come hunting us down for us to finish last and them second last so it's going to be a good one to watch that's for sure.
"We're going to need that crowd now more than ever. We are on the podium already so are over the moon. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain."
Patience echoed his sentiments, adding: "There is one boat that won't be as happy, confident or positive as us right now and that is the Australians who are in first looking back at us.
"While we are looking forwards to attack, they are having to defend. I would much rather be us. We are in a win-win situation. It's theirs to lose and ours to win. We can't get worse than silver, what a nice place to be in. We are just going to go out there to do all we can.
The only other class in action on Thursday for Great Britain were the women's match racers, who were knocked out of the quarter-final stage on Wednesday so faced a sail-off to decide positions five to eight.
Great Britain's Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor were to face France after losing to Russia 3-2 and seeing a protest against the result rejected.