SHANDON sailor Anna Burnet is on her way to France as Team GB’s sailors make their final preparations for the Olympics in Paris.

Burnet, 31, will partner John Gimson in the Nacra 17 mixed multihull event at the Games as the pair aim to match or better the silver medal they won in Tokyo three years ago.

The pair, coached and mentored by three-time Olympic medallist and former America’s Cup skipper Iain Percy, have their sights set on the top step of the podium – and on making it a double celebration when they tie the knot at their wedding just a few weeks later.

Speaking on the British Sailing Team’s YouTube channel this week, Anna, a former pupil of Lomond School, said: “And as soon as I knew what the Olympics was, I thought ‘that’s what I want to do, I want to get there’.

READ MORE: Anna says she hopes her Olympic success can inspire more young women to take up sailing

"It’s such a huge event, and it brings the whole world together. It unites nations and countries. It is a really phenomenal thing. “

The pair won back-to-back world championships in 2020 and 2021, but had to settle for silver behind the Italian duo of Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti both at the Tokyo Games and at the Worlds in the Hague last summer and in France earlier this year.

Anna, who learned her craft on the Gare Loch under the expert eye of the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club, added: “We see what our competitors are doing, and we try to match at least, or do a little bit more, because that’s the only way you’re going to get better.”

The Nacra 17 event – which, like all the Olympic sailing classes, is being held not in Paris but 480 miles away in Marseille - gets under way on Saturday, August 3, with the medal race taking place on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 7.