BRYONY Shaw and Izzy Hamilton will be looking to challenge for medals at the RS:X European & Youth European Championships in Mondello, Sicily, as racing gets underway tomorrow.

The event is also open to athletes from across the globe, who will be competing for the Open Trophy.

Sailors under 17 years of age will challenge for the Youth European trophy including a number of up-and-coming talents from British Youth Sailing.

At the 2014 RS:X European Championships in Turkey, Shaw finished just outside the podium spots and will be heading out to right her wrongs this time around.

The world number one, who is based in Weymouth, has had a successful start to the 2015 season, winning the ISAF Sailing World Cup Miami in January and recently silver at the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Weymouth and Portland.

Once again the Olympic bronze medallist will be looking towards the front pack.

She said: “Hopefully I will be challenging for medals.

“I am going to have my A game kit there, and my pace will be a little bit quicker than in Weymouth and Portland.”

Sicily is known for tricky and tactical conditions and many of the British team have been out training.

Shaw added: “I have done some stuff out in the venue to get used to it, it is very different to sailing in the UK and I think it is going to be very venue specific.”

Hamilton finished fourth at the recent ISAF Sailing World Cup Weymouth and Portland, her best World Cup finish to date. Weymouth and Portland was a warm up regatta for the RS:X Europeans and Hamilton, after an otherwise solid week on the race course, will look to learn from her medal race mistake which put her out of medal contention, as she starts racing in Sicily.

“The World Cup is a really good training opportunity for us it’s a bit of a warm-up regatta for the Europeans, lots of goals and lots of learning points,” she said.

Weymouth’s double Olympic medallist Nick Dempsey will skip the event in favour of domestic training. Competition begins today, with three races scheduled per day until the final double points medal race scheduled for Saturday.