The 58-year-old sailor knows just what it feels like to win a medal at the games after striking silver in 1980.

David, who is now one of the leading lights at Rutland Sailing Club, competed for Ireland at a remarkable five Olympic Games spanning 20 years.

This week he recalled that wonderful moment when he stood on the podium in Russia 28 years ago.

"It was a moment I will never forget for the rest of my life," said David, who lives in Whissendine.

As he proudly examined his medal, which feels heavier than you might expect, he thought back to that special summer at the Moscow games.

It was a controversial time because several nations, including the USA, Japan and West Germany, boycotted the games in protest at the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Most of the world's top sailors were there, however, as David took part in the Flying Dutchman class in tandem with Jamie Wilkinson, who he used to race with when they were children growing up in Ireland.

Much of their subsequent success was down to changing the centre board on the bottom of their boat. They were pipped for the title by Spanish pair Alejandro Abascal and Miguel Castellvi, on the Baltic at Talinn.

David recalled: "We went there as dark horses for a medal.

"But after we made this change to the boat we were really, really fast.

"We were delighted to win the silver medal but we both thought we should have won gold."

The 1976 games in Montreal, when David finished well down the field in the Tempest class, was the only one he looks back on as a failure.

The rest of David's Olympic history is littered with near misses for medals and bad luck stories.

He partnered Peter Kennedy in the Flying Dutchman class at the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea. David considers they were better prepared for that competition than any others in his career.

They sailed well but some extraordinary misfortune sunk their chances and they finished just outside the medals.

"In one of the races we were running second when this big container ship suddenly came ploughing through the course," David recalled, with a shudder.

"We were one of the few boats which had to take avoiding action and we ended up down in 12th spot.

"In another race in Seoul when we were leading by miles a plastic bag coated in tar began slowing us down.

"We had to capsize the boat to get this bag off and that put us down to 18th. We would have won a medal without a doubt had we not had those two incidents."

More bad luck and unsuitable weather conditions scuppered David's hopes with Peter in the 1992 Barcelona games.

There are bittersweet memories of his first Olympics – the infamous 1972 games in Munich.

David was a late call-up to the Irish team, mainly after he impressed the selectors after finishing third at the Great Britain Olympic trials.

He was 22 and had only been sailing seven years. David and Sean Whitaker eventually finished a very creditable sixth in the Tempest class.

But medals were instantly rendered meaningless when tragic news broke that Palestinian terrorists had shot dead two Israeli athletes after breaking into the village and taking a group of them hostage.

David recalled: "There were Israeli and Arab sailors competing at the games and they all become good friends of mine.

"You compete against the same people throughout the year and you develop friendships which last your whole life.

"It was very difficult when news came through of the massacre.
"What do you say to Israelis and Arabs when something like that happens?"

David grew up just north of Dublin. He didn't take up sailing until he was 15 but quickly developed into one of Ireland's best ever sailors.

He was representing his country at 17 and won a world youth title a year later.

Today's top sailors are fully professional. David raced during a strictly amateur era and he reckons he has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of his own money pursuing his sailing career across the globe.

These days he plays an important role in British sailing. He sits on a six-man committee at the Royal Yacht Association which presides over the development of the sport in this country, from juniors to the elite Olympians. Sailing is clearly in his blood.

"There is a lot of skill involved but variations in the wind can make all the difference – that's what makes sailing interesting because it brings a certain amount of luck into play," said David.

"It is like asking a 100m sprinter to run on a track full of potholes when he can't see where the potholes are."

Between 2001 and 2004, David held the top post of commodore at Rutland Sailing Club. He is an instructor and still loves sailing on the reservoir when the commitments of his computer software business allow.

Married to Gill, the couple have two daughters – Sarah (30) and Karen (34), a keen sailor who is competing at Cowes this week. Karen learned to sail in one of David's junior classes alongside Penny Clark, a GB medal hope in the Laser Radial category at Beijing.

David has high hopes for the British fleet at the games and predicts they will at least equal the tally of five medals won at the last Olympics in Athens.

All of the GB squad have honed their skills training at Rutland Water and David is particularly confident about the medal chances of Ben Ainslie, who already has two golds, Bryony Shaw and Ian Percy.

David will be glued to the television coverage of the games over the next fortnight and his mind will probably drift back to his own Olympic memories.

"I am a very competitive person and that is what drove me on in my sport," he added.

"I still get fired up by the Olympics and even now I think it would be great to be a part of it all again."