RHU sailor Luke Patience admitted to feeling mixed emotions after his place at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games was confirmed.

Patience was named in the first group of sailors on Team GB for the games in Brazil alongside Elliot Willis in September.

Following Willis’s cancer diagnosis in December Patience teamed up with Chris Grube.

The pair formed a strong partnership and last week made the final cut of four sailors to join the 15-strong team. Grube will be making his Olympic debut while Patience already has an Olympic medal to his name – the 470 silver he picked up with Stuart Bithell at London 2012.

Patience hopes he can draw on his experience in London to achieve more Olympic success.

He said: “It’s still a special day but mixed feelings I suppose because I am combining two campaigns to try and still achieve the same goal. It was wonderful to do this today with Chris and it was wonderful to do that day with Elliot as well. They're mixed emotions, but overall I’m happy and I can’t wait to, hopefully, do Queen and country proud.

“I hope I can draw on the London experience, and with Chris being a first time Olympian, between us it will keep things grounded.

“Four years ago I was probably the most excited man with Stuart in front of the camera, but business will be business, the excitement will be the excitement, they will be two separate things. We will do the damage we can do on the water and, hopefully, with a smile on our face.”

Despite his inexperience at Olympic level, Grube has his sights set on coming home with a medal.

He said: “My selection has obviously come out of Elliot’s misfortune, but we are going to do our best and, hopefully, get a medal and do Elliot and ourselves proud. It’s been a very long road. Now it’s finally here it is quite surreal.

"Even though it is something you have been aiming for 10 or more years it’s a fantastic opportunity to represent my country at the Olympics, I am very proud to be standing here and able to say that.

“It’s a short campaign for us, but we are looking to bring back a medal at the end of the day and we need to make sure the processes are in place to achieve that.

"There are a lot of technical things happening in the background, we need to make sure the boat is moving quickly through the water, but also we need to make sure our racing is going well.", working well as a team and our communication in the boat is understandable to each other.”