FORMER Lymm High School student Niki Birrell left his final regatta before the Rio Paralympics with mixed emotions.

The 29-year-old, sailing in the SKUD class alongside partner Alexandra Rickham, couldn’t add to their five titles at the Para Sailing World Championships in Holland over the Bank Holiday weekend as Poland took the gold medal.

However, they did win silver and finished ahead of 2012 Paralympic champions Australia in the process..

“This time last week I wouldn’t have taken second as I wanted to win,” Birrell said.

“But given how the competition panned out, we had a few things go against us and sailed badly in couple of races, we can be pleased.

“That was as well as we could have done but we want gold in Brazil, so we need to work hard to find a way to beat the Poles.”

After kit damage confined them to finishes of eighth and eleventh in the two races on Thursday, the pair responded well on Friday by finishing second and third.

In the first race on Saturday, we led all the way until an incident at the end of the last run that put Australia ahead of us,” Birrell said.

“I was convinced they were wrong, so took it to the jury room and won after a protest.

“We sailed well in the second race but had our seats too far forward and it was really choppy which made it difficult to be quick upwind.”