By Libby Jennings

Team GB sailors John Gimson and Anna Burnet were pleased to survive another day on the water as they kept their medal hopes alive at Paris 2024.

The couple on and off the water recorded a fifth and two fourth place finishes in the mixed multihull on Monday, to leave them in contention heading into the final day of regular racing.

Gimson said: “We were pretty happy with today, not everything went our way but we sailed well.

“When we got behind, we got back to a top five which is the most important thing of the day.

“Not quite sure where we are overall but I’d say people were slightly falling away and you needed to survive the day and I felt we did that.

“I mean it is the Olympics and you kind of expect everyone to peak here so we knew coming into this that it would be a pretty challenging regatta especially with the conditions this venue can throw at you.

“I said at the start of the week it is going to take a strong team and I think that the teams at the front are the four strongest teams and we just need to keep chipping.

“I think when you are trying to sail a consistent series and plug away with top fives it can look pretty daunting in the middle of the week.

“You know, you are like eighth and people in front have high scores but the discards in and I think you just got to rely on the luck evening out over the week and slowly people do fall away.

“[We] just need to keep the consistency up and that will be rewarded by race 12 hopefully.”

After winning silver at the Tokyo Olympics, the couple are sure to want some more silverware to their collection in time for their wedding date set after the Games have finished.

With wind conditions being difficult so far during the regatta in Marseille, the pair will have to tackle this if they stand a chance at being a medal contender.

“It is always this venue," Burnet said. “We knew coming to this venue it would be a tough Olympics, you know, it’s hard to forecast what the weather is going to do.

“All of the models can tell you something and then that doesn’t quite happen and once you are out there it is always a little different to what you were expecting.

“You can never have a preconception about one side is going to pay or not pay because it usually changes and then it will change from one beat to the other.

“It is fun ,you know, it’s challenging racing. We’re enjoying it.

“We knew it was going to be really tough and it has been really tough so we are just chipping away.

“Tomorrow I think we can’t change anything we have been doing, you know, there’s not a possibility to start taking loads of risks, it would be easy to throw it away like that.

“I think we just really need to focus on the details well, just sailing how we have been sailing and chipping away at every race, fight for every point.

“It’s not the kind of place to start doing crazy things, it’s uncontrollable.

“We’ve done well, we are pleased with how we have been sailing, other people have been sailing really well to be expected so yeah, we are just focused on what we are doing and keep chipping away.” 

Follow the British Sailing Team at Paris 2024 on Instagram at @britishsailing and on www.britishsailingteam.com