Hannah Mills has revealed she won’t trust she has won an Olympic gold medal until it is hanging around her neck.

The Welsh sailor is on the brink of winning the women’s 470 title along with her Great Britain crew Saskia Clark, with the pair due to finish their competition on Wednesday.

The duo arrived at the Rio Olympics with unfinished business after taking silver on the home waters of Weymouth and Portland four years ago.

It was a challenge they met head on and a fine regatta means they are all but assured of Britain’s second sailing gold of the Games, hours after Giles Scott wrapped up Finn glory in Brazil.

Forced to race on their reserve day due to Monday’s changeable conditions, Mills and Clark secured two third places either side of a second to build up a 20-point cushion ahead of the medal race.

It means that, subject to protest, the British duo will become Olympic champions if they complete the double-point medal race without disqualification.

‘Disbelief is how I felt,’ Mills said. ‘I didn’t trust Joe (Glanfield), our coach, that he got the points right.

‘It still hasn’t sunk in, until we get the medal, until it is there and it can’t go anywhere.’

Clark added: ‘Obviously we want to go and not be total clowns out there on the water tomorrow and get around the race course in good shape.

‘But I think we’ve managed to keep a lid on that when we needed to. Today was a great example of that. As each race went past, it was still about the next race.’

A medal is beyond London 2012 silver medallist Luke Patience and Chris Grube ahead of the men’s 470 medal race, despite a solid day leaving them sixth overall.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Alison Young won the Laser Radial medal race but finished eighth overall.