Percy and Simpson win gold in Star class
Thursday, 21 Aug 2008 16:08
Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson win gold in Star class sailing event
Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson have won Great Britain's fourth sailing gold medal of the Beijing Games with victory in the Star class event.
The British pair began the medal race in second behind the Swedish team of Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom.
After a titanic battle in the medal race, Percy and Simpson pipped the Swedes to fifth place in the race, and first overall, to add to the golds won by Ben Ainslie, Paul Goodison and the women's Yngling team of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson.
Sweden were forced to settle for the bronze medal after finishing behind the Brazilians Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada, who took silver.
Simpson, competing in his first-ever Olympic Games, said afterwards he was "shocked".
He told the BBC: "To do this after this week and this year we've had is unbelievable.
"Since last year, everything focused on this week. We've worked really hard for the last 12 months.
"We had to pull it back from the brink. It was a tough race and we just did enough."