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Ainsley wins third Gold.

Olympic Champion Ben Ainslie blazed a trail of bullets through the Finn fleet at the first Olympic Test Event in Qingdao, China to record an emphatic victory. TEAMORIGIN duty had kept the Sydney and Athens gold medallist away from the Finn circuit for nearly a year, and with just five days training coming into the event Ainslie said he had approached the regatta with an open mind.

A bullet and a second place on the opening day led one Chinese journalist in the boat park to describe his performance as a 'miracle', and over the course of the next nine days Ainslie had reporters wading through their whole repertoire of adjectives as he posted another eight bullets and one more second place to win by 28 points.

'It's funny - when you spend a lot of time away from the boat, quite often you come back and you learn something a little bit new,' explained Ainslie. 'I think maybe when you're sailing all the time you get into kind of a mindset or a way of sailing and it's very hard to change that, and if you take a bit of time away then you have a more open mind I guess.'

Ainslie's dominance was such that he had victory wrapped up before the Medal Race, a feat only equalled in one other fleet.

The 31-year-old sailed in rough weather to take the Finn medal race, adding to his golds from Athens and Sydney.

Ainslie is now GB’s most successful Olympic sailor of all time, with his three golds complimenting his silver won in 1996.

He added that 2012 was also not out of reach, saying: “It’s pretty good going (to have four medals) but the draw of 2012, on home waters, is huge.

“It’s a long way away, we’ll see. If I got the chance to be there and to do well, I’d love to do it.”

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