By James Reid

Fynn Sterritt hopes putting the fun back into his sailing can prove perfect preparation for the Olympic Games.

Sterritt admitted he and 49er partner James Peters returned to the drawing board following a 10th-place finish at the World Championships in Lanzarote in March.

The pair have not returned to the water since that regatta but are back in action at the European Championships in Cannes this week, with fun top of the list of changes they have made as they eye a medal in Marseille this summer.

“You get selected for the Games, you have been dreaming about it for so long and then all of a sudden you are in the final run in, we have become very business like,” admitted Kingussie-born Sterritt.

“We are very professional and quite formalised in everything we do but you have to be careful as it can suck the fun out of it. 

“We are consciously trying to reintroduce the enjoyment factor and not taking ourselves too seriously. We have made changes in order to facilitate that. 

“You start off doing this because it’s good fun and for so much of our careers it has been really enjoyable. It’s not that it isn’t at the moment, it’s just all a bit serious.

“We are in a hugely privileged position to go to the Olympics, not many people get to do that so we’re going to maximise that and enjoy it as much as we can.”

The planned changes from Lanzarote mean Sterritt and Peters are not focussed on a medal in Cannes, though admit a place on the podium can never hurt.

Instead, the focus is on fine-tuning what is needed to ensure they taste success later this summer, where they will hope to follow in the golden footsteps of Dylan Fletcher-Scott and Stuart Bithell, who took victory in Tokyo.

“The confidence you get from medalling always helps,” added Sterritt.

“We’ve been doing this a long time so we feel like we know what needs to be done but it would be nice to get another on the European stage.

“This cycle, in terms of individual results, has been a bit disappointing for us. Last cycle in the lead up to Tokyo, James and I and Dylan and Stuart, one of us generally was always on the podium. 

“This cycle has been a bit tougher but it feels like we are getting back to our level.

“There are a few specific goal that we have so we are not too focussed around the outcome here, it is more about what lessons can we learn that are going to be of use in Marseille come Games time.”

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