100 Team GB contenders for London 2012: Iain Percy
- Published
Sailing (star class)
Born: 21/03/76
Career highlights
Percy has won Olympic gold in two different classes: his 2000 triumph in the Finn event came just two years after turning professional, and eight years later he struck gold with Andrew Simpson in the Star class. The pair then won the 2010 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro.
Career background
He began sailing at the age of four when his parents, David and Gillian, decided to take up a sport that the whole family could enjoy together.
They would go to Datchet Water, near Slough, where Percy started competing against Andrew Simpson. They became best friends over the years and teamed up three years after Percy had finished sixth at the 2004 Olympics.
The pair dedicated two years to the short-lived British America's Cup bid Team Origin to compete in the 2013 event; the team withdrew in October 2010 after controversial rules were unveiled for the event.
Did you know?
Percy has posed naked in women's magazine Cosmopolitan.
He says he has developed a "strange Aussie-like twang" after being away from home for so long and competing with Australians and New Zealanders over the years, and finds it embarrassing.