Ben Ainslie of Britain won Finn class at the Olympic sailing regatta?in Qingdao, Shandong Province,?on Sunday, bagging his third straight Olympic gold and becoming the third sailor in Olympic history to have achieved such a feat.
The defending Finn champion wrapped up the gold with splendid performance on the waters of the Olympic sailing center by taking the lead of every mark.
On the first mark, he sailed a 12-second lead over France and the margin was narrowed by the second mark when Ainslie's advantage was just one second.
The third mark witnessed the world-beater Ainslie take the overall fleet with a 20-second lead and finish the medal race 13 seconds ahead of Denmark. He finally accomplished his hat-trick gold mission at Olympic sailing with 23 points overall.
"This feeling is truly amazing, and it's a massive relief. I could open the champagne right now and rightfully so," said Ainslie, 31.
"The last downwind was a little scary. I kept telling myself, 'don't capsize, don't capsize'. All in all, this is my best last race in all of the four Olympics that I've participated in," he said.
Looking back, Ainslie said, "We had very tough series of light wind early on. We had to wait a long time to finally have our medal race. All of us were a bit nervous. Thank Lord we had some good wind finally in the medal race. I am very happy with that," he said during the press conference after the awarding ceremony.
When asked whether he possessed "superman" genes for his great achievements, Ainslie joked, "First I am human." He contributed his success to his coach, the whole sailing team and his friends and family. The most important, was "hours of training and rise to the pressure".
Ainslie won Olympic silver as a 19-year-old in 1996 Atlanta. He has won two golds since and is the five-time Finn world champion. Among the nine preliminary races, Ainslie remained the top four for seven times plus two 10th finishes. Ainslie entered Sunday's medal race with a 12-point margin over Zach Railey in the second.
Zach Railey from the United States took the silver medal with 45 points, enlarging the distance with Ainslie in the preliminaries by 10 points.
"It's a big relief. I am proud of myself. It has always been my dream to stand on the Olympic podium. The fact that it's silver and not gold is not important to me," said 24-year-old Railey for his first Olympics.
The bronze medal went to Guillaume Florent from France totaling 58 points, finishing 4th in the medal race.
"Everyone needs some luck sometimes, and today I had it. Today was my day," said 34-year-old Florent, who finished 8th in Finn in 2004 Athens.
The 10-boat medal race of Finn on Sunday, which should have taken place on Saturday, was later than the rescheduled time due to the pouring rain at the Olympic Sailing Center with a wind speed of 16 knots.
(Xinhua News Agency August 17,2008)