Is Ben Ainslie just playing with us?

10 05 2008

Ben Ainslie has just won his fourth Finn European Championship after an extraordinary week of drama. Those words ‘drama’ and ‘Ben Ainslie’ just shouldn’t appear in the same sentence. This guy is so good, he should be winning these regattas at a stroll. Such is his superiority in the Finn class, it always makes me wonder if he’s really trying when he’s not winning with at least a race to spare.

A bit like his last gasp victory at the Olympic Test Regatta in Qingdao last year, Ainslie had it all to do, going into the Medal Race today. He was 8 points adrift of Guillaume Florent, the Frenchman who has been the surprise leader of this regatta for much of the week. Eight points, or four places (in the double-scoring Medal Race), in a 10-boat fleet is a lot to make up, but not the way Ainslie goes about things.

Ainslie said: “I had a game plan that I had discussed with my coach, Jez Fanstone, to have a bit of a match race with Florent in the pre-start and to try to put him off his game plan. I managed to force him into making a mistake and by halfway down the first beat I could see he wasn’t going so well so I decided to pull the throttle to try to get as big a lead as possible and hope he didn’t pull through.

“This does rank amongst one of my more satisfying victories; it is always nice to win when you have been behind going into the last race,” said Ainslie. I imagine one of the other satisfying aspects of this victory was in knocking Florent off the top of the podium. It was the Frenchman who controversially protested Ainslie in a port/starboard incident at the last Olympics in Athens. The Briton was disqualified, even though TV footage of the port/starboard cross showed more than a little daylight between Ainslie’s transom and Florent’s bow.

Don’t make Ben angry, you won’t like him when he’s angry. Suitably fired up, Ainslie went on to dominate the Olympic Regatta and took Gold in Athens.

So, almost four years later, Ainslie took his revenge in Italy today, while Croatia’s Ivan Gaspic took silver ahead of Florent who was forced to settle for bronze.

Five Gold Cups, four European Championships, three Olympic Medals, two of them Gold. One undeniable truth. Ben Ainslie is the clear, clear favourite for Gold in Qingdao this August.

Except that in each of the three Olympic Games he’s competed in, Ben has always had a terrible start to the regatta. He’s always left his chances of a medal hanging in the balance. Which means that today is unlikely to be the last time that we see those words ‘drama’ and ‘Ben Ainslie’ appear in the same sentence together this summer.

Photo courtesy of James Taylor


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Categories : Ben Ainslie, Finn, Olympic Classes

Five Gold Cups for Finn King Ben

29 01 2008

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Ben Ainslie won his fifth Finn Gold Cup in Melbourne, after finishing second in the Medal Race. But the reigning Olympic Champion said this was his toughest win of the five.

The Brit already held the world record for the number of wins in this long established and legendary Olympic class; well ahead of Paul Elvstrom (two wins), Willi Kuhweide, Jorg Bruder, Lasse Hjortnaes, Freddy Loof, who all had three wins.

And he has Olympic gold medals in both the Laser class (2000) and Finn (2004).

Ainslie finished just a wave behind British team mate Ed Wright in the medal race, which is restricted to the top ten sailors after eight races in the 82-boat fleet, but well ahead of New Zealander Dan Slater, who had been only a point behind him going into the medal race.

A fresh 15-knot sou-‘wester, with only minor variation in direction, made the race probably the regatta’s fairest. The outcome was decided at the start with Ainslie getting away well towards the middle of the line while Slater was buried and had to tack off on port early but in disturbed air under the Canadian Chris Cook.

Wright cracked the best start towards the pin end of the line while Pieter Jan Postma (Netherlands), who went into the medal race in third place, also looked good off the line towards the pin, but was disqualified as a premature starter.

Wright led around the first mark of the two-round windward-leeward course from Ainslie with Johan Tillander (Sweden) third and Slater back in eighth place. While the fair breeze presented few passing opportunities Slater, always fast downwind, improved to fifth to secure the silver medal ahead of Jonas Christensen (Denmark).

Although Ainslie had only to finish second to win the regatta, he worked body and boat hard, surfing waves to the finish trying to win the race. “I had a bit of a skid out halfway down that run which wasn’t far off a capsize,” Ainslie said. “I still wanted to make sure I beat the Dutch guy because anything can happen.”

As it did happen Postma, unaware he had been disqualified for his premature start, had continued racing.

Slater explained his poor start: “I saw that PJ (Postma) and Ed were pretty well advanced and I thought they were over the line. Then once Ben popped out, I just had to stay with PJ and Jonas to stay in touch for a medal.

“The game was pretty well over.”

Slater, who has been friends with Ainslie since they raced Laser Radials against each other more than 15 years ago, was the first to congratulate him as they hauled their Finns ashore at Black Rock Yacht Club.

They were still friends? “He’s alright, he’s not bad for a Kiwi,” said Ainslie as they shook hands. Funnily enough, both sailors are former members of Team New Zealand, although they did not overlap. Slater sailed for TNZ in the disastrous 2003 defence while Ainslie joined soon after that for the 2007 challenge in Valencia.

Ainslie said this world championship had been the hardest to win of his five along with 2003 when he had a really close tussle with the defending world champion Rafael Trujillo (Spain).

“It went down to the wire in the last race and this one was just as close,” said Ainslie. “There’s really big strength and depth in the class now and so I am obviously delighted to win it and look forward to lots of hard work up until China.”

Final points for the top ten are: Ainslie 39, Slater 46, Christensen 53, Postma 65, Tillander 78, Cook 80, Wright 86, Aimilios Papathanasiou (Greece) 92, Peer Moberg (Norway) 102; Ivan Klajkovic (Croatia) 103.

Notable absentee from the Medal Race was defending World Champion from Spain, Rafael Trujillo, who came an unlucky 13th.

Full Results from the Finn Gold Cup here…

Thanks to Corinne McKenzie and Bob Ross for some excellent reports from Black Rock YC in Melbourne


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Categories : Ben Ainslie

Ben beats Dan in Finns

28 01 2008

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While the lead in the 470 Worlds has been swinging around from one team to the next, Dan Slater has been at the top of the board since day one of the Finn Gold Cup, when he won both heats.

However, yesterday Ben Ainslie (pictured above) claimed a psychological advantage in passing the Kiwi on the finish line, to get ahead by one point before tomorrow’s Medal Race. With Pieter Jan Postma climbing to 3rd and Jonas Hoegh-Christensen in 4th position after a 9th in today’s race, the top four contenders are within 10 points going into tomorrow’s Medal race. It will be a four man battle for the title.

The reigning Olympic Champion, tenth at the top mark, gradually gained places. Turning 5th onto the run, under Oscar flag allowing for free pumping, Ainslie stayed close behind Slater waiting for a good opportunity. A few metres from the finish, Ainslie gybed to take a wave that propelled him ahead of Slater. Just 31st at the top mark, Pieter-Jan Postma made a huge recovery passing 25 boats to finish 6th in the race.

Although pipped to the post by Ainslie, Slater was unconcerned. “It doesn’t really matters who from Ben or I passed the other today. Tomorrow’s Medal Race counting double is minimising the one point gap between us.” This will not be the first time that the two sailors will be competing for the same title. “This is bringing some old memories of times when Ben and I where racing against each other in the Laser.”

Ainslie is the clear favourite for victory tomorrow, which would hand him a historic 5th Finn Gold Cup. The Medal Race puts extra pressure on the end of a regatta, but if anyone thrives on pressure, it’s Ainslie.

Finn Gold Cup Results here….


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Categories : Ben Ainslie, Dan Slater

Old Rivals on top in the Finns

27 01 2008

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A long time ago, if memory serves me correctly, a young Kiwi sailor called Dan Slater beat a young Brit called Ben Ainslie to the ISAF Youth World Championship. That was almost 15 years ago, in Laser Radials. Now the same two sailors – a little older, wiser and somewhat heavier – are battling it out at the top of the leaderboard in the Finn Gold Cup in Melbourne.

Slater (pictured above) had a scorcher of a start to the regatta at Black Rock Sailing Club, winning both the first heats in lighter winds. Yesterday was the first big breeze day, and the top of the table is tightening up.

The two big gainers were Jonas Hoegh Christensen (DEN) and Pieter Jan Postma (NED). Postma stormed up the charts to fourth overall, with a stunning 1,2 scoreline in the breeze. Almost as good by the Dane, the 2006 World Champion, who notched up a 1,6. But Hoegh Christensen revealed a slight chink in his psychological armour in hoping for more strong wind races to round off the Championship. That’s all very well for winning the Gold Cup in Melbourne, but what about the Olympics? Isn’t that what 2008 is all about? And that’s supposed to be a light-airs regatta.

Presumably Qingdao is why reigning World Champion Rafael Trujillo has lost quite a bit of weight in the last few months. But he has been struggling in the light winds at Black Rock, and even the breezy races yesterday weren’t the banker he would have been hoping for. Scores of 12,17 mean the Spanish Olympic Silver Medallist languishes in 14th overall. Like the Aussie 470 Men, here is another defending champion who is struggling just to make the Medal Race.

Full Results of the Finn Gold Cup here…


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Interview with Ainslie

22 01 2008

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I caught up with Ben Ainslie last week during the Sail Melbourne regatta. At the time, he had just moved into the lead, but Ed Wright was still hard on his heels. As it turned out, Ben stretched away on the final days to win the regatta by a massive margin, even though he said he wasn’t that focused on his performance there.

For Ben, the trip to Australia was all about Sydney International Regatta (where he needed to prove his mettle against Ed for British selection to the Olympics) and now the Worlds which start in the next few hours. If he can win in Melbourne, it will be his fifth Gold Cup victory.

Of course the other job which Ben is holding down is that of skipper of Team Origin, not the most onerous job right now, bearing in mind the current state of the America’s Cup. So I started the conversation there…

Ben, what’s your view on the America’s Cup situation right now?

I think it’s a massive frustration. Hard to contemplate how it got to this stage. When it started six or eight months ago, people thought this would be the worst case scenario and there would some way out of it, but so far not. Boat builders, designers, sailors are just waiting around hoping that something will happen soon, so very frustrating.

Not such a problem for you, though? You’ve got quite a bit on your plate already…

For me personally, it was going to be very tight this year. We were looking at launching a boat in June, and making a final call on building a second boat in late July, so it was going to be a busy year. The plan was to start in the Cup boats at the end of February, and then in the summer to spend six weeks [in the Finn] building up to the Games. It [the lack of an America’s Cup] has taken a lot of pressure off, to some extent. For the purely selfish goal of the Olympics it makes it easier, but like everyone else I’m still disappointed.

You haven’t done much Finn sailing in the past few years. But it still seems to be going as well as ever. Has the America’s Cup campaign with the Kiwis actually helped you in the Finn?

It means I’ve been very fresh coming into it. Now I’ve done three months non-stop sailing. I’m just beginning to remember what it feels like to be full-on Olympic campaigning, and how easy it is to get stale and a bit jaded. I think at this stage of my career, this is about as much as I could do of full-time Olympic sailing in one block.

After sailing with Emirates Team NZ, what comes easier to you now than before? Meteorology? Anything in particular?

Nothing really. Physically it’s been hard getting sailing fitness back and getting the weight back on. I suppose I’ve got a better understanding of rigs and sails for China, and close-quarters racing from the match racing. But racing in big fleets like we have here, I haven’t done that for three or four years, so that’s been really good for me. For the first few days I was really struggling on the starts. You’re on a much longer line, so it’s much more important which end you pick, whereas in China everyone had their own spot and sheeted in off the line. That was much easier, except for the current that runs there.

Are you pleased to be going into the Worlds knowing you’ve already been selected?

Yes. Obviously it’s unfortunate for Ed, but I think it will make it an easier regatta for both of us not worrying about what the other guy is up to on the race course. Now we can just both sail our own regattas. I think the SIRS regatta was a big one to build up and peak for. Now it’s difficult to build up to another big regatta so soon. It will be a tough regatta here, it’s normally pretty breezy.

How much do you want to win the Gold Cup again?

I really want to win. I set standards for myself, and everyone else sets standards for me that I seem to have live up to. But with the main goal of China this year, it doesn’t have a whole lot of relevance. Everyone will want to do well here, and set themselves up for a good season. But in terms of relevance to China, it’s chalk and cheese really.

Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes finished 2nd in the Worlds recently, having won last year’s Worlds. I wondered if finishing runner-up in Olympic year was actually the perfect result for them, to take the pressure off a bit. Does it ever cross your mind about doing something to take the pressure off?

You always wonder that. Pressure’s a funny thing. But going into the Games as reigning World Champion or not, I’m not sure if it has much bearing on the Olympics, which is such a unique event and brings its own sets of pressures. Here I’m going to forget about everything else for the next 10 days and just concentrate on this.

Meanwhile, your brother-in-law Jerome Pels has a few pressures of his own to consider, now that he’s become chief executive of ISAF…

It’s always quite funny when we go round to dinner. My dad starts laying into him about how he should be changing the sport. I just stay well out of it. I don’t want to know. Jerome won’t talk to me because he’s so paranoid that everyone thinks he’s doing me a favour, so he goes out of his way to avoid that situation. But I’m pleased for him, he’s been at ISAF a long time, and he’s got a good understanding of the management challenges in that role.

Thanks Ben, and good luck for the Gold Cup.


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It’s that Ben again!

18 12 2007

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Ben Ainslie has taken round one of his showdown against Ed Wright in the Battle of Britain. The four-time Finn Gold Cup winner dominated the Sydney International Regatta in a mix of conditions, comprehensively beating last year’s World Champion Jonas Hoegh-Christensen from Denmark into second place, with reigning World Champion Rafael Trujillo scraping into third.

The Spaniard finished on equal points with new boy in the class, a 20-year-old Brit called Giles Scott who missed out on a medal after the countback system came into play.

Ainslie’s selection rival Ed Wright had his moments, but not the consistency, and managed just 5th overall. The reigning Olympic Champion has never been happy about having to do a selection trial, a point he emphasised earlier today. “I’d hope that with this win and with the results from China this year and last year that it’ll make things quite clear, but that’s really up to the selectors now so I’ll just have to wait and see!”

I think the main reason why the RYA selectors made Ainslie go through this trial was because of the 30-year-old’s appointment as skipper of Team Origin, but with the British America’s Cup team’s announcement today that it is standing down its main operations for the time being, it looks as though Ainslie has plenty of time to focus on winning that medal in China next year.

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Lots of drama elsewhere at SIRS, with up-and-coming 49er team Nathan Outteridge and Ben Austin beating Paul Cambell-James and Mark Asquith for overall victory. Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby (pictured above) won the Tornados from Leigh McMillan and Will Howden.

And a show of Canadian dominance in the Laser class, with Michael Leigh beating local favourite and reigning World Champion Tom Slingsby to gold, with another Canadian Bernard Luttmer finishing equal on points with Slingsby but 3rd on countback.

Some great photos (including the ones above) on Jack Atley’s website…

A recent Q&A interview with Ben Ainslie here…

And if you want to know more about new kid Giles Scott (plus what Ben Ainslie thinks about him), there’s an old but good interview here…

Full results of SIRS are available here…


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Nailbiting showdowns in Qingdao

24 08 2007

Whatever has been said about the concept of the Medal Race – and it has taken plenty of stick over the past year – it threw up some incredibly nailbiting conclusions in the Olympic Test Regatta in Qingdao.

On the final day, Paul Goodison (photo courtesy of OnEdition) scored a lowly 7th out of 10 in the Laser Medal Race, just holding off the 8th placed boat by three seconds. Goodison clinched gold by a point – and those vital three seconds – from Sweden’s Rasmus Myrgren.

On the previous day, Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes potentially through away their 49er gold medal when they hit the windward mark while lying in fourth. Taking a 360 penalty was the last thing they needed in 15 to 18 knots, and a washing machine chop driven by a wind-against-tide scenario. Fortunately that same washing machine chop was causing problems for a few of their rivals. Down the final run to the finish, the Brits took four places thanks to a few capsizes – although they had a full wobble on through their own final gybe – before crossing the line in 4th place. It was enough to give them gold, again by a single point from the Spanish reigning Olympic Champions, Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez.

Even Ben Ainslie had to rely on the misfortunes of others in the Finn finale. There were capsizes in that fleet too, not least Ivan Gaspic’s final-gybe capsize just 200 metres from the finish. He could have won gold, but that capsize relegated the Croatian out of the medal zone altogether. He finished 4th overall.

It was a phenomenal performance by the Brits, even by their high standards. Five golds and one silver across 11 disciplines. Not too bad by the antipodeans either, with the Aussies scooping two golds, a silver and bronze; the Kiwis were third overall with one gold and two silvers. For the full medal table and a good wrap-up report, look at ISAF’s website.


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Categories : Ben Ainslie, Olympic Test Regatta, Paul Goodison, qingdao

Brits & Aussies bag some breezy Pre-Olympic Medals

22 08 2007

After a week of little or no wind, Qingdao finally came good for the first set of Medal Races today. With the breeze blowing a thankfully uncharacteristic 15-17 knots, it was a great day for the Brits, and a pretty good one for the Aussies too.

Despite a poor Medal Race for Ben Ainslie, the reigning Olympic Champion picked up right where he left off exactly a year ago, defending his Pre-Olympic title with relative ease. Ainslie went into the final with an 11-point lead over Croatian Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic, but found himself way down the fleet when he recrossed the start line thinking he had jumped the gun.

The Croatian at one stage managed to get enough places between him and the Ainslie to wrest the overall lead away from the Brit, but was overtaken on the final downwind leg and then capsized 100 metres from the finish line to end all hopes of a coup. Ainslie finished the medal race in seventh place but it was enough to hand him the gold – his second in Qingdao in what is his first Olympic classes regatta since the 2006 Test Event last August.

“I did a pretty good job of losing it out there today!” Ainslie admitted. “I had a terrible start but luckily I was able to dig deep and get back a few places. With it being only my first race in the Finn in a year I wasn’t really sure what to expect coming here, but I’ve been very happy with my performance this week. I’m sailing pretty well right now, but still have a great deal of room for improvement.”

Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes added Pre-Olympic gold to their World and European titles, although like Ainslie they too made a pretty good attempt at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Exmouth duo were in eighth place and out of the medal positions when they rounded the windward mark for the final time in today’s medal race.

But on the final downwind leg they managed to pick up four places – with a little bit of help from several of their competitors who capsized – and finished the medal race in fourth place, which was enough to hand them the gold by one point, ahead of reigning Olympic Champions Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez.

“We had a rough day today – there was a lot of wind out there,” said Morrison. “Several teams capsized during the race, but we managed to hold on to take the overall lead. We’ve made a fair few mistakes in this competition, so are a little bit surprised that we came out on top, but it’s really great to have won back to back golds at major events, and hopefully this is a good sign ahead of the Olympics next year.”

Skandia Team GBR also grabbed gold in the Women’s RS-X division, thanks to a superlative performance by Bryony Shaw, and it was silver in the Men’s 470 for Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield. So, three golds and one silver for the Brits, and two more Brits in pole position for their Medal Races tomorrow. Australia took gold in both Men’s and Women’s 470 classes, and silver in the Tornado and bronze in the Women’s RS-X. Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada surfed their way to victory in the Star class, earning a gold for Brazil.

No surprises in the Tornado, with light-wind experts and double Olympic Champions Roman Hagara and Hans-Peter Steinacher winning the cat class from Darren Bundock and Glenn Ashby. The Austrians will start as favourite for the Olympic title this time next year – IF they qualify for the Games. Finishing 20th in the recent windy Worlds in Cascais, they have yet to secure a spot in the Olympics for Austria. The Tornado Worlds in New Zealand early next year give them a final opportunity to qualify for Qingdao. It’s unthinkable that they won’t achieve that, but stranger things have happened at sea.


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Categories : Ben Ainslie, Ben Rhodes, Olympic Test Regatta, Stevie Morrison

Ainslie gets a wild card to China

16 07 2007

Ben Ainslie has been selected to represent Great Britain in the Finn class at the 2007 Olympic Test Event in Qingdao next month. This is effectively a wild card entry for the reigning Olympic Champion, who has barely set foot in a Finn since winning last year’s Test Event in China.

He’s had other things to do, what with being Dean Barker’s sparring partner and tune-up helm at Emirates Team NZ in Valencia. So Ainslie by his own confession is rusty. Indeed China last summer is the only time Ainslie has raced the Finn since winning the last of his four back-to-back Gold Cups in Moscow back in 2005.

This news will be disappointing but not altogether surprising for Ed Wright, who won last year’s European Championships, but has struggled to reproduce that form this season. He had a solid World Championship in Cascais last week, going into the Medal Race with a good chance of a medal and a shot at gold. However, he had a poor final race, finishing 8th out of 10 and dropping to 6th overall.

I didn’t get a chance to speak to Ed after that final race, but I did see Skandia Team GBR’s Olympic manager Stephen Park giving him a consoling pat on the back. Last week was Ed’s best chance to prove himself selectable ahead of Ben, but it didn’t work out for him. Ed is a mighty talented sailor but like Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson four years ago, when Bart won a World bronze, Ed looks like another great athlete who was simply unfortunate to be born in the same era as one of the world’s greatest Olympic sailors.

If Ben succeeds in repeating last year’s runaway victory in China, then that will probably be the Finn trials over, right there and then. If Ben finishes outside the medals, then the trials could continue, but it’s hard to envisage this happening.

Skandia Team GBR was on awesome form again, doing sufficient to qualify the nation in all 11 disciplines for next year’s limited entry Olympic Games, and finishing top nation in Cascais with a tally of two golds and four bronzes.

You get some idea of the team’s strength in depth when you consider that last year’s World Champions in the 49er and 470 Men’s classes will be going as tune-up for the British teams selected to race in China this year! 2004 bronze medallists Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks had a sub-par Cascais regatta, finishing 9th while Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes dominated this year’s Worlds to add that title to their European title earned at the end of last season. Meanwhile the 2006 World Champions in the 470, Nic Asher and Elliot Willis, go as training partners for 2004 silver medallists Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield.

Sarah Ayton’s Yngling team, which won the Worlds last week, is going to China while Shirley Robertson’s crew is not down on the list as tune-up.

Here is the full list of Skandia Team GBR representatives for the Test Regatta:


Finn
Ben Ainslie
(tune-up/reserve boat – Ed Wright)

49er
Stevie Morrison & Ben Rhodes
(tune-up/reserve boat – Chris Draper & Simon Hiscocks)

Star
Iain Percy & Andrew Simpson

Laser Radial
Charlotte Dobson
(tune-up/reserve boat – Penny Clark)

Laser
Paul Goodison
(tune-up/reserve boat – Nick Thompson)

RS:X Men
Nick Dempsey
(tune-up/reserve boat – Leo McCallin)

RS:X Women
Bryony Shaw
(tune-up/reserve boat – Lucy Horwood)

470 Men
Nick Rogers & Joe Glanfield
(tune-up/reserve boat – Nic Asher & Elliot Willis)

470 Women
Christina Bassadone & Saskia Clark

Yngling
Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb & Pippa Wilson

Tornado
Leigh McMillan & Will Howden
(tune-up/reserve boat – Andrew Walsh & Ed Barney)


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Categories : Ben Ainslie, Olympic Test Regatta