Background
Mills was born in Cardiff, Wales, and started sailing at Cardiff Sailing Centre when she was 8 years old before moving up to sail for the Welsh National Optimist Squad and winning the British Optimist Championships in 2001.
Mills was born in Cardiff, Wales, and started sailing at Cardiff Sailing Centre when she was 8 years old before moving up to sail for the Welsh National Optimist Squad and winning the British Optimist Championships in 2001.
In 2002, Hannah was voted United Kingdom Young Sailor of the Year and British Broadcasting Corporation Wales Young Sports Personality of the Year. After suffering a black flag in the very first race of the championships, Hannah and her crew Saskia claimed Gold at the 2012 470 World Championships in Barcelona. Mills battled hard throughout the event, not finishing outside the top 6 the entire regatta.
She went into the medal race with crew Saskia Clark equal points with the New Zealand team and far enough ahead of the rest of the fleet that both boats were battling it out for Gold and Silver.
After a great start, however, there was a dramatic wind shift and they came 9th in the medal race, which gave them the Silver medal. On 10 December 2014, Mills and Clark were robbed at knifepoint in Rio de Janeiro while in training for the 2016 Olympics.