A long period of rehabilitation followed as Sills, from Launceston, balanced pain management with exercises to improve the nerve pathways to his eyes and joints.
After finishing seventh at the 2023 World Championships, Sills qualified for the 2024 Olympics in the iQFOiL – a windsurfing category in which boards use hydrofoils attached to the bottom to lift them out of the water, at speeds of up to 30 knots (about 55 km/h).
He returned to the big action in November and finished 20th at the 2025 European Championships – the fourth best British sailor, having been the country’s top finisher in 2023.
“For a long time I thought I wasn’t going to make it, to be honest. I couldn’t walk, so it was so hard and I couldn’t find a solution,” he says.
“So it was quite emotional to return to the Europeans and return to that world.
“It’s not just about the competition, it was my life, work, friends, everything, so it was a really big goal to come back and it meant a lot to do it, and I can’t thank the people who really helped me enough.”
Now almost fully fit, Sills is focusing on this summer’s World Championships on his home water in Weymouth in September – and the hope that this can lead him to the reckoning for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
“It drives everything,” he says of his Olympic ambitions.
‘From that point you work backwards and that’s basically what you focus your four-year campaign on.
“It’s a little crazy when you think about it, but it’s a lot of fun when you do it.”
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