ANOTHER Olympic sailing medal will be coming back to Dorset - but it may not be a welcome guest.

Weymouth and Portland's duo of Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks have guaranteed themselves bronze with one race to go in the 49er class.

After a penultimate day of racing which saw them dramatically lose ground to their medal rivals however, they face a massive challenge to bring home their preferred Olympic target of gold.

Spain's current world champions Iker Martinez and Xavier Fernandez look to have sailed off with the booty after opening up a potentially decisive 11-point lead over the Britons.

Downcast Draper, who lives on Portland, claimed they had been aiming for gold and would be very disappointed to settle for anything less. He said: "We were

pretty upset when we came in - very disappointed.

"A gold medal was what we wanted.

"I really felt that we could sail a really good day today - but we didn't sail our best.

"There's no point dwelling on it - that is sailing.

"The positive side to look at it is that we could still possibly win the gold."

Draper and Sydney gold medallist Hiscocks went into yesterday lying second and opened the day with a win, but slipped back in the next two races after two calamitous course decisions.

In races 14 and 15 of the 16-race series, they picked the wrong side of the course and limped in behind their rivals, falling to third overall.

In a fleet which numbers only 19 boats, the Dorset pair have to finish 12 places ahead of the Spanish pair to win gold - something which has not happened once in Athens.

Draper and Hiscocks had been one of the hot favourites in the British sailing team to win gold in Athens. They won the world championship in 2003, were runners-up this year, and came into the Olympics as European champions.

Helmsman Draper, 26, said he and Hiscocks would spend their day off today deciding on tactics for Thursday's finale.

He added: "It is still achievable, and we will be doing everything we possibly can on Thursday.

"I am not sure what we are going to do yet in terms of tactics.

"We could go out and try and win the race, or do something to win the silver.

"We just need to go out and sail a race and things will take care of themselves."

The scoring system means Britain's duo cannot be caught by the American pair in fourth.

Their medal brings Britain's tally at the Athens regatta to four, after Ben Ainslie's gold, Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield's silver in the men's 470, and the Yngling gold.

Shirley Robertson, Sarah Webb and Weymouth's Sarah Ayton won in the Yngling with a race to spare.

Results after 15 races (including two

discards):

1 Martinez/Fernandez ESP 3,11,7,5,1,(12),2,6,(12),1,9,2,8,2,4 60pts

2 Luka/Leonchuk UKR 4,(15),3,7,2,(10),7,5,9,5,3,10,6,5,3 69pts

3 Draper/Hiscocks GBR 8,5,6,3,10,8,1,(13),(11),8,2,4,1,9,6 71pts