Luke Patience and Joe Glanfield have three Olympic silver medals between them, with different partners. Now they've combined to win silver again at the 470 European Championships in Formia.
The partnership picked up a second medal from their third event together since joining forces at the beginning of this season, with Glanfield having come out of retirement for another Olympic campaign.
France’s Sofian Bouvet and Jeremie Mion took gold but Patience, who won Olympic silver with Stuart Bithell at London 2012, was delighted with the result.
“We’ve had a great week – I’m really pleased with how we’ve been sailing, and I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made in such a short time together,” said Patience.
“We’ve laid down the foundations of exactly who we are and what we are as a team and from there you can see the little gaps and improvements that can be made.
“I don’t think we could be asking for anything more than to be challenging for the podium at every regatta we’ve done.
“Sure, there are things on a micro scale that we need to look at and a number of scenarios this week have presented themselves to us on the racecourse that we haven’t come across before, and we’ll learn from.
“But we can’t ask for much more – after time out of the boat, Joe’s adapted really quickly to the new style of racing and the new pumping rules and it’s great to see him enjoying it.”
Meanwhile, Sophie Weguelin, the defending European women’s champion, and her new partner Eilidh McIntyre, 19, went into the final medal race knowing they had bronze in the bag.
And with no prospect of winning silver, they enjoyed a pressure free race.
“It’s been unexpected,” said Weguelin, of their podium run this season, which has seen them claim silver and bronze at the Palma and Hyeres World Cup events.
“It’s great to be able to keep that momentum going, especially when we have the Worlds coming up quite soon, but for us it’s really important that we keep on learning and improving as we’re still a young team with lots to learn.”
© Sportsbeat 2013