Mills and Clark entered London as reigning world champions and were sailing on home Weymouth waters, where they trained every day.
They headed into the medal race on the final day with gold in their sights.
Things quickly started going badly in the finale, however, and they ended the race second last as New Zealand’s Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie coasted to victory.
Though the British duo won silver, the delight of securing an Olympic medal was mixed with despair at missing a golden chance.
Even though there was pride at finishing on the podium in a home Games, a feeling of what might have been lingered.
There was a hangover after the 2012 Games, with the pair taking a break before deciding to give the Olympic cycle one more chance.
There were challenges. Clark had to overcome a nasty bout of pneumonia and the duo temporarily lost their coach, Joe Glanfield, who decided to return to competitive action himself before abandoning this dream and coming back to guide them.
When they reunited, Mills admitted they were going through the motions and, for a while, were in a negative spiral. Yet improvements were evident when they snapped out of the lethargy.
The pair won silver at the 2014 and 2015 Olympic test events in addition to further silver (2015) and bronze (2014) World Championship medals. They also claimed the World Cup win in Weymouth, where they exacted some revenge over their Kiwi rivals.
