Ben injured his back in December at the ISAF Sailing World Championships in Perth, Australia, forcing the childhood friends to withdraw from the competition. Despite this setback, teammate Stevie remains upbeat and confident that they have what it takes to be selected, despite strong competition.

“We’ve got a new boat that we’ve been fitting out,” he told the publication. “Once that’s finished and if Rodent [Ben] is alright, we’ll sail. But we’re happy with most of the pieces of the jigsaw. The main thing is making sure Rodent’s right.”

After finishing ninth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the pair needed to overcome challenges to regain their place at the top of the sailing world, but Stevie thinks that they are getting back to their old ways. “Maybe not doing so well at the Olympics and being disappointed, subconsciously, we felt that perhaps being the jokers in the pack wasn’t professional enough.” he said, “We perhaps started taking ourselves too seriously, and so that maybe led to a heightened level in the boat.”

“Now I think we’ve put the fun back into the sailing a bit,” he continued, “although obviously it’s not fun for Ben at the moment – he’s in the gym lifting minute weights with his toe!”

That aside, Stevie feels that their record at Weymouth stands them in good stead for an Olympic qualification berth. “I feel the other guys need to prove themselves in Weymouth,” he said. “We need to perhaps prove ourselves in other ways, but in Weymouth we’ve shown we can come up with the goods. We’ve won worlds, we’ve won Europeans, we’ve won everything other than that one week at the Olympics.”