European 470 bronze for Patience and Bithell

By Sportsbeat staff

LUKE Patience and Stuart Bithell recovered from a poor start to claim bronze at the 470 European Championships in Istanbul.

COMEBACK: Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell won bronze at the European 470 Championships in Turkey (Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR)

The pair, who also won bronze at the recent ISAF World Cup regatta in Weymouth, picked up a black flag disqualification in their opening race but bounced back to win four races on the spin to establish their medal credentials.

However, they struggled in shifty conditions later in the regatta as Greece's Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis took gold and Israel's Gideon Kliger and Eran Sela claimed silver.

"We were looking at going home without a medal which wouldn't have been ideal," said Patience.

"But we stayed pretty grounded, kept on plugging away and when we saw the opportunities we pounced on them like gazelles!  

"We managed to sneak past a couple of boats, then a couple more on each of the remaining legs and by then we knew we'd done enough."

"It's been a really hard week, some tricky offshore winds, and getting black flagged in the first race of the event obviously didn't help either.  But we'll come away having learned lots and with a medal round our necks."

Double British world champions Nic Asher and Elliot Willis, and the top two women's boats of Sarah Ayton and Saskia Clark and Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes did not compete in Istanbul.