A gold medallist in Sydney and Beijing, Percy can make it a golden treble is he can claim the star class title alongside Andrew Simpson this summer.

The GB sailing team was largely chosen at the end of 2011, and Percy says having so much time to concentrate on the Games can only help their pursuit of glory.

"It's great to be able to focus on the Games, we were selected early so we've just been concentrating only on the Games which has been a lot of hard work," Percy told Sky Sports News Radio..

"Being at home doesn't really affect what we do day to day, we've got so many aspects of the sport to get on with we don't' have time to worry about anything else."

Physical

Percy suffered a back injury at the World Championships last year and he says the demanding physical nature of sailing would take most people by surprise.

"It's an incredibly physically demanding sport and I'm getting quite old so it's a bad combination!" he added.

"Our races are an hour long, heart rates are up to about max for most of that, it's a combo of aerobic fitness and lot of strength required and the young guys are getting fitter and stronger all the time so I've been working on that.

"Because of that in the world champs my back gave way, it's the first serious injury I've had and it really was a worry for me, but I've been doing all the stuff the physio told me and thankfully we're on top of that now."

Percy and Simpson put in huge hours of training in order to be the best in the world, hours that may also surprise some.

"I'd be surprised if there were many sports that take more time or have longer days than sailing, particularly our boat which is very large and technical," he says.

"We're up in our first gym session at seven, down at the boat for 11 and on the water probably 12-5, many times coming back in the pitch black in the winter. Then we have a second gym session, debrief, and then getting to eat at 8.30pm and then straight into bed. It's very rare a star class day, which is our boat, is less than 15 hours."

Weymouth weather

Percy has been a bit rusty since his injury last year but is enjoying some much-needed race practice, which will include a go on Olympic waters at Weymouth, which he thinks will provide a superb setting for the Olympics.

"We're doing quite a few competitions at the moment, we've got the World Champs coming up and we've just done a competition in Majorca," he added.

"It's important because I missed a few events through injury so it's great to be back on the racing side of things because we're not race sharp. A bit like football you can be fit but not match fit and that's how we feel at the moment.

"We've got a competition coming up in the south of France and then back for the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta in Olympic waters in Weymouth.

"It's a really great venue, which makes probably more of a difference for us, from a professional standpoint you want a good competition and Weymouth, and all of England, is brilliant because it has such a variety of wind.

"We experience it every day as Brits with all the changing weather but as sailors in England you get that variety which means lots of different skills are tested.

"There's lots of different wind strengths and wave types and generally when conditions are that varied the best sailors will win, so we're looking for a great competition there and it'll be fantastic."

Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson are sponsored by Clarks Shoes who have created a bespoke custom fit dinghy boot for the duo to compete in at the Olympics. For more information please visit www.clarks.co.uk/sailing.