Ainslie Contemplates Next Move
Ainslie Contemplates Next Move
His dream of winning the America’s Cup for Great Britain scuttled, Ben Ainslie takes aim at his fourth Olympic gold medal.
The day before leaving to compete in the Argo Group Gold Cup in Bermuda, Ben Ainslie received notice that he and the rest of his teammates on the TeamOrigin America’s Cup syndicate were officially unemployed. Faced with turning a monohull team into a multihull contender, TeamOrigin founder Sir Keith Mills abruptly pulled the plug on the project.
Ainslie, who has the America’s Cup high on his list of career goals, was crushed. “It’s bad enough if you don’t race well and don’t reach your goal,” he said, “but if you don’t even get to the start line, it is totally disappointing.”
But the 33-year-old Brit didn’t let the ambiguity surrounding his Cup future affect his performance at the Gold Cup. The four-time Olympic medalist (3 gold, 1 silver) led his TeamOrigin crew to the championship with a 3-1 win over Danish veteran Jesper Radich in the finals. He is the first sailor since Russell Coutts in 1992 and ’93 to win back-to-back Gold Cup titles.
When BMW Oracle Racing announced it was going with multihulls for the 34th America’s Cup, did you see the decision as the end of an era, so to speak, for British sailing?
We wanted to bring the Cup back to England, and set things right in an event we originated. But, in the end, for Sir Keith Mills, we couldn’t continue that heritage within the new format. It was a very British team and we worked very hard for three years to move it forward. We were all quite positive about our options. Ultimately, it was Sir Keith Mill’s decision. He took it with the feeling that it wasn’t a viable project anymore. As a team, we felt we were viable. It would be a steep learning curve to become top multihull sailors, but we were ready for that challenge. For Sir Keith, I think, the event was getting farther and farther from where we started. It is such a good group of people, and it is a shame that it can’t happen.
Do you think he should have handled things differently?
Sir Keith is someone I have a lot of respect for. It’s his team, his money, after all. He has a lot of experience in sport. I think the problem at the moment is the America’s Cup wasn’t the fashionable thing to do. It also may have to do with the proximity of [the Cup in 2013 to] the 2012 Olympics. I am sorry we couldn’t make it happen.
Does this make your own situation easier now that you can focus solely on the 2012 Olympics?
I was in a difficult position before. I guess I don’t have to face that problem now. However, it is unfortunate that they picked 2013 for the event and that was probably one of the big reasons that Sir Keith pulled out. My goal right now is to go back to the gym and start training for the Olympics.
