The term “living legend” is a heady one, but by all measuring sticks, that’s precisely what England’s Ben Ainslie, 31, has become. Yesterday Ainslie won his fifth Finn Gold Cup (held this year in Melbourne, Australia), which is the class’s equivalent of a world championship. And he also earned historical note for this feat, as he has become the first person to win four or more Finn Gold Cups in the history of the class. Considering some of the storied names that have come through the ranks of this hyper-competitive class (Coutts and Elvstrom, for example), that’s saying quite a lot. While these five Gold Cup wins are not chorological, Ainslie has won plenty of other trophies in the interim, including two Olympic Gold Medals (Laser, 2000; Finn, 2004). Moreover, Ainslie has won every Finn Gold Cup that he’s entered since the year 2002, when he joined the Finn class.

But the accolades don’t stop there, as Ainslie has also accumulated America’s Cup experience, first as tactician for Emirates Team New Zealand (2007 Cup), and more recently he has recently signed on to Brittan’s homegrown Cup challenge, Team Origin (in fact, it was his involvement with Team New Zealand that prevented him from attending consecutive Finn Gold Cups). Moving forward, Ainslie plans to return to England, start training for the 2008 Olympics, and to loose some of the weight that he intentionally gained in order to competitively race Finns (easily one of the world’s most athletic dinghy classes) in Australia's typically windy conditions. Look for Ainslie to become an America’s Cup superstar in the years to come.

For more information, check out www. benainslie.com

Posted: January 30, 2008