Mills and Clark claim 470 world title in expression of Olympic intent

Posted: Saturday 19th May 2012 | 20:40

HANNAH Mills and Saskia Clark will arrive at the Olympics as world champions and fleet favourites.

Mills and Clark made history by becoming the first British sailors to win the women's 470 world championships in Barcelona.

They success, which upgraded their silver from last year, followed just one day after Ben Ainslie won a record sixth Finn world title.

The pair were disqualified in the first race but fought their way to the top of the leaderboard heading into the medal race, where a third place finish was enough for gold

Mills said: "It's been a long week - a day longer than our events usually are, and made to feel even longer when we got our black flag right at the start, so there was no real room for error after that.

"It was really cool to cross the finish line and know we had done enough.

"I don't it has really sunk in yet for me but Saskia is super happy, she's so excited.

"We knew we had the potential to win here, and it's a huge thing to be World Champion but at the same time I can't stop thinking about this summer and the Olympics which is what this year is really about for us.

"We've learnt a whole lot this week, on how we need to sail to win, our strengths and weaknesses and about staying consistent and we've sailed a really, really solid week."