 Percy won gold in the Finn at the Sydney Olympics |
British sailors Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell won bronze at the Star class world championships in Italy. The pair dropped from second to third in the final race after being sailed down the fleet by eventual champions Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom.
The Swedes led by one point with one race left but forced Sydney Finn gold medallist Percy into 28th place.
Crew Mitchell said: "It's important not to lose sight of what is our focus - the Olympics in three months time."
The British pair had to count their 22nd place from race two and lost a medal place to the Swiss pairing of Flavio Marazzi and Enrico De Maria.
Mitchell added: "We are a bit disappointed as we didn't think Freddie [Loof] needed to do as much damage as he did, we both went from first and second to 31st and 32nd.
"Unfortunately as we had a 22nd place from race two we had no fall back position going into the final day whereas he could discard whatever he got."
Team Percy and Mitchell will now enjoy a few weeks off before heading onto their next event, SPA Regatta, in Holland from 26-30 May.
MMIX
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 