Ben Ainslie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ben Ainslie MBE (born 5 February 1977 in Macclesfield) is a British sailor and two-times Olympic gold medalist. He started sailing at the age of 4 and first competed at the age of 10. Ainslie's first International competition was the Optimist (dinghy) 1989 World Championship's held in Japan where he placed 37th.

The son of Roderick 'Roddy' Ainslie, who captained a boat that took part in the first Whitbread Round The World Race in 1973, he won a gold medal at the World Youth Championships in 1995, and was awarded the title of British Yachtsman of the Year in 1995, 1999, 2000 and 2002. He is also the holder of an MBE.

[edit] Olympic success

Olympic medal record
Sailing
Gold	2000 Sydney	Laser
Gold	2004 Athens	Finn
Silver	1996 Atlanta	Laser

Ainslie was a gold medalist at the 1993 Laser Radial World Championship, gold medalist at the 1993 Laser Radial European Championship, silver medalist at the 1994 IYRU World Youth Sailing Championship in Marathon, Greece and gold medalist at the 1995 IYRU World Youth Sailing Championship in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Ainslie won silver at the 1996 Olympic Games and Gold in the 2000 Summer Olympics in the Laser class. He put on 40 pounds (18 kg) and moved to the larger Finn class for the 2004 Summer Olympics, where he won gold.

[edit] Americas Cup

At the beginning of 2005 he was working in the role of Tactician in the New Zealand based Emirates Team New Zealand who are preparing to compete in the challenger selection process to win the right to Challenge for the Americas Cup held by Alinghi.

In May 2005 Ainslie took the decision to relinquish the role of tactician and focus on improving his Match Racing skills as helmsman of the 'B' boat used to practice and tune the race boat helmed by Dean Barker. This decision means that he will not be on the race boat in 2007 unless the current helmsman Dean Barker suffers a loss of form or becomes unavailable to race.