Once round Aleh and Powrie extened their lead down the run to lead at the bottom and going right again left no option for the British pair but to take the left again. The course was shortened and the Kiwi pair wer able to sail away to an easy win to take the Gold.

In the battle for the bronze it was the Dutch pair Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout who finished sixth to take the Bronze behind Mills and Clark who had the Silver safe.

Speaking immediately after the race, Clark said: “We just feel a bit gutted at the moment; we didn’t even put a good show on really. We had the Kiwis on the start line and we let them go to the right and we were wedged in with a few boats and didn’t follow them out there. Halfway up the beat we knew the gold medal was gone from us.”

Mills said: “The wind was tricky. We felt like the left had better breeze, which is why we wanted to get the left, but a 20 degree right wind shift came in, the wind died [on the left] and that was game over. We’re pretty gutted to be honest but we’ve had a wicked 18 months together. Sas is amazing and we’ve had a great time.”

The 470 Women’s medal follows Ben Ainslie’s Finn gold and Iain Percy / Andrew Simpson’s Star silver on Sunday, Nick Dempsey’s RS:X Windsurfing silver on Tuesday and Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell’s 470 Men’s silver earlier today.

470 Women - Final positions after medal race
Gold NZL Jo Aleh / Olivia Powrie 35.0 pts
Silver GBR Hannah Mills / Saskia Clark 51.0 pts
Bronze NED Lisa Westerhof / Lobke Berkhout 64.0 pts
4. FRA Camille Lecointre / Mathilde Geron 65.0 pts
5. ITA Giulia Conti / Giovanna Micol 73.0 pts
6. BRA Fernanda Oliveira / Ana Luiza Barbachan 75.0 pts
7. AUS Elise Rechichi / Belinda Stowell 83.0 pts
8. GER Kathrin Kadelbach / Friederike Belcher 84.0 pts
9. USA Amanda Clark / Sarah Lihan 98.0 pts
10. ESP Tara Pacheco / Berta Betanzos 101.0 pts