Pain of Beijing finally banished by Dempsey with ‘special’ silver lining

The 31-year-old has spent much of the past four years stewing over what could – and maybe should – have been at the 2008 Beijing Games, where he agonisingly missed out on the medals by finishing fourth.

There was to be no such problems yesterday, though, as Dempsey staved off the potential threat of his rivals to secure silver by finishing third in a medal race won by gold medallist Dorian van Rijsselberge.

“It has taken me a long time to get over that (Beijing) and I think I am over it – just about,” said Dempsey, with the sport dropped in favour of kiteboarding for 2016.

“This is just amazingly special. I think with it just being at home, it is just incredible.

“To have your friends there and your family there is special.

“It is not often you get to share these amazing moments in life with your friends and family because you’re always half way around the world.”

Dempsey was cheered on by thousands of Union flag-draped fans and even Prime Minister David Cameron, who visited the south coast on a day of more British success on the water.

While Bryony Shaw was unable to claw her way into medal contention in the women’s RS:X medal race, Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell mathematically assured themselves of at least a silver medal in the men’s 470 class.

The pair have amassed a large enough points margin heading into tomorrow’s medal race to be sure that the third-placed crew cannot catch them.

Patience and Bithell, though, still have eyes on gold, which is currently on course to go to Australia’s world champions Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page.

“We didn’t come here for second place,” Patience said. “We’re stoked, don’t get us wrong. We’re really happy boys (to get silver) but there is work to be done.”

“There is yet another race and yet another opportunity to upgrade the medals.”

That work increased today in the final two fleet races as Australia secured a double bullet to move them four points clear of the British pair.

“It is a little bit frustrating,” Bithell said. “We have got a better discard than those boys going into the last race so we thought about attacking them a little bit.

“We did do that at the start and then tried to win the race. We executed that quite well but the nemesis came through the fleet and kept going.”

Britain also lie in silver medal position in the women’s 470 class.

Yet again it is impressive Antipodean opposition that are proving the stumbling block, with Britain’s Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark posting a fifth and second on a day that New Zealand’s Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie got a double bullet.

The Kiwis have built a four-point advantage ahead of tomorrow’s final two fleet races, while in the match racing Great Britain head into the second day of their quarter-final with Russia level at 1-1.

The Ekaterina Skudina-skippered Russian team won the first match of the best of five series, although Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor drew level in the last race of the day.