World Sailing Championships: Giles Scott wins Finn title

Scott went into the World Championships ranked second behind Wright

Great Britain's Giles Scott won gold and compatriot Ed Wright bronze in the finn class at the World Championships.

Dutchman Pieter-Jan Postma won Sunday's medal race in Perth but had to settle for silver in the overall standings.

Triple Olympic champion Ben Ainslie was absent after being disqualified on Saturday following an altercation with officials on a media boat.

Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell took silver in the 470 behind Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page of Australia.

Ainslie, who was leading the fleet before Saturday's disqualification, has already been named as Britain's representative in the Finn class at next summer's Olympic Games, but Scott and Wright proved GB's strength in depth by taking two of the podium places in Perth.

"A month ago I was actually probably struggling for a bit of motivation, especially having lost the selection and that slowly sinking in," said the 24-year-old Scott, already the European champion.

"Fortunately I managed to pull myself through that and put some decent training in, and I managed to get myself in the situation where I could win the Worlds and it's just great."

Wright said: "It's amazing how everyone just keeps on improving and improving [in the British Finn squad]and it's great for Giles to go away with the win.

"It's probably better for at least another Brit to win if it can't be me!"

Patience and Bithell won Sunday's 470 medal race but the Aussie pairing of Belcher and Page did enough with fourth place to take gold, having dominated the class all week.

Although the World Championships is not an Olympic selection trial for the British sailors, those in the men's 470, men's 49er and women's Laser Radial will be keen to impress as they are the three classes with 2012 places still up for grabs.

Patience and Bithell have done their cause no harm in the 470, with compatriots Nick Rogers and Chris Grube finishing 10th and Nic Asher and Elliot Willis 14th.

"We're feeling great, we're really happy," said Patience. "It's been a really long week and me and Stuart have worked so hard for this regatta.

"So much of our training for the last three or four months has been towards this week. I know we're not standing on the gold position on the podium, and that's what we intended to be, but it's been a hard week and the Australians have sailed fantastically, so we're happy to be stood on the podium with a silver medal.

"We'll be having a good Christmas because of that."

Alison Young finished as the top Briton in the Laser Radial in seventh place, with Hannah Snellgrove 14th and Charlotte Dobson 16th.

Bryony Shaw, who has already secured her Olympic place, ended the RS:X windsurfing class in seventh place, while Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate McGregor won through to the quarter-finals of the match racing.

The star class got under way on Sunday and Britain's Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson made a strong start, taking the overall lead with fourth and third-place finishes in the day's two races.