A FARMER and his son have flown home victorious after winning a medal at the World Air Games.

Rob Keene and son Rees, scooped silver in their microlight at the games in Italy.

The 48-year-old owner of Over Farm Market, on the A40 nearGloucester, flew his microlight to Turin to go for gold in the race.

Rees was sponsored by the RAF to take part.

Rob said despite being 0.1 second away from the gold medal, the race had still gone really well.

He said: "I think it went really well.

"We were dead pleased but it was a bit frustrating that we were so close to the gold.

"We had a lovely flight down there across the Alps, which was quite exciting. It was a seven-and-a-half hour journey but we stopped a few times so it took a day to get there.

"On the way back we had a lovely, clear day. It was gorgeous."

Rob explained that the games, based at the Torino Aeritalia Airport, also included parachuting, helicopter flights, paragliding and even model airplane flying.

His race was run in a similar way to a cycling competition at a velodrome.

He said: "Two of you take off at opposite ends to each other and the first past the finish is the winner.

"It's a very fast chase, and for the first time ever it was set out to be appealing to the spectators, whereas normally microlight chases happen quite high up in the air where nobody can see what's happening..

"We had to chase around these blow-up pylons, doing very tight turns."