A 38-year-old sailor from Congleton has won a silver medal for Great Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

World Nacra 17 foiling champions John Gimson, from Congleton, and his partner Anna Burnet, always had a difficult task to surpass long-time fleet leaders, Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti, from Italy.

The Italians had led the regatta since the first day and despite finishing one place ahead of them in the medal race, the British pair took silver.

Nacra 17 made its Olympic debut at Rio 2016 with Gimson and Burnet's historic feat making yesterday's success (Tuesday, 3rd August), the first medal Team GB have won in the discipline.

Speaking about what this success meant to him via the official Team GB website, Gimson said: "It's been worth every minute but most importantly I've done it for 20 years to get here.

"An unbelievable amount of people have helped me along the way and just for them, to say thank you, I'm glad we did it. It would have been gutting to come and not go through with it.

"A lot of people have volunteered their time and money and invested in us heavily so I'm just so happy we've followed through for them.

"Twice my discipline got dropped as a class. Just as a youngster having done one cycle ready to go for my campaign for the Games and it was dropped at the start of the cycle.

"The second time I did that I'd sold my house and had literally no money and at that point I was questioning my life decisions but, it was all worth it, all of it."