Luke Patience (born 4 August 1986) is a British Olympic sailor. He competed with Stuart Bithell at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and the team won a silver medal.
Personal life
Patience was born on 4 August 1986, in Aberdeen, Scotland.[1]
Sailing
Patience and Stuart Bithell were selected to compete for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom in the men's 470 class ahead of Chris Grube and Nick Rogers.[2] heading into the final race of the event the pair were guaranteed at least a silver medal but had to beat the leading Australian crew of Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page with a boat between them to take gold. Patience and Bithell finished fourth in the race with the Australian's second, meaning they took the silver medal.[3]
In December 2012 Patience and Bithell ended their partnership, with Bithell moving to partner Grube in the 49er skiff class.[4][5] Patience remained in the 470 class and joined up with Joe Glanfield who had previously won silver medals at the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics before choosing to retire.[6] They won a silver medal at the 2013 European Sailing Championships behind Sofian Bouvet and Jeremie Mion of France.[7] However, in February 2014, Glanfield again chose to retire.[8]
In March 2016 Patience was forced to find a new partner after Willis was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had to withdraw from the Olympics; he teamed up with Chris Grube and had to requalify for the Olympics.[13] They took part in a World Cup event at Hyères in France, despite suffering a black flag disqualification in one race they finished tenth overall.[14][15] In May 2016 Patience and Grube were confirmed as the Great Britain team's entry for the men's 470 in Rio.[16][17]
