Great Britain's sailors Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell are mathematically assured of at least a silver medal in the men's 470 class at London 2012.
The pair have amassed a large enough points margin after Tuesday's first race to be sure that the third-placed crew - currently Argentina - cannot catch them.
Patience and Bithell now face a straight fight with Australia's world champions Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page for gold.
There is one more fleet race, before the medal race on Thursday and the British duo still have eyes on gold.
"We didn't come here for second place," Patience said.
"We're stoked, don't get us wrong. We're really happy boys [to get silver] but there is work to be done.
"There is yet another race and yet another opportunity to upgrade the medals."
That work increased in the final two fleet races as Australia secured a double bullet to move them four points clear of the British pair.
"It is a little bit frustrating," Bithell said.
"We have got a better discard than those boys going into the last race so we thought about attacking them a little bit. We did do that at the start and then tried to win the race. We executed that quite well but the nemesis came through the fleet and kept going."