A week to remember
Written by Ben Ainslie | 30 May 2012
The past week has been one to remember, winning the Finn World Championships/Gold Cup. Then to be the first Olympic Torchbearer was something I'll never forget for the rest of my life, a once in a lifetime experience and I'm just very proud to be a part of it.
Watch Ben's latest behind the scenes campaign video "Three amazing days" here.
The Finn Gold Cup
It was a fantastic weeks racing in the JP Morgan Asset Management Finn Gold Cup in Falmouth. Winning the worlds in Falmouth was special for me personally because it's where I grew up and learnt to sail and I have so much history there. It was great to see so many old friends and have such strong support.
We had a varied week of sailing conditions with every day being totally different. The stand out day had to be the Thursday; the conditions that day can only be described as 'epic'. It was a big day, with massive waves and 30 knots of winds. It was an amazing day's sailing for everyone, it's not often we race in conditions like that so it was great to have three competitive races, there was a lot of tired sailors at the end of racing but everyone that raced came ashore with a smile on their face. I'm very happy with the result and how the week went ahead of the Olympics. I would like to thank the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club for their excellent event organisation, the sailors couldn't have really asked for more from them.
The Torch
For the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay to start at Lands End is a great moment for Cornwall and a great moment for the whole country to have the Torch on its way, and again to see the atmosphere and see how excited everyone was, it was good to see.
After racing on the Friday night, I headed straight to Culdrose airfield to watch the Torch arriving in the United Kingdom. The atmosphere there was fantastic with a lot media interest, I think doing an interview with the Deputy Prime Minister with an Apache attack helicopter 50 metres overhead was one of the more challenging interviews I've ever done.
To get to Lands End on Saturday morning we had to be up pretty early, about half past four, which was quite tough because there was the prize giving the night before for the World Championships. It was a great honour to be asked to be the first Torchbearer. However, I was so focussed on the Worlds I didn't really have a chance to put much thought towards it. When I arrived at Lands End and saw all the crowds it suddenly hit me that this was going to be a special moment and not something I would ever forget.
Waiting for the Torch to arrive was quite a surreal serene moment, just standing there it was really quiet, everyone was waiting for the chopper to land, and just for a moment it so peaceful and calm, and then of course the Torch was lit and it was pandemonium, people were cheering, the reaction from the crowd was fantastic. I've never seen anything like it. I've been asked a lot if I planned to walk slowly and let the crowd touch the Torch, to be honest it just felt like the right thing to get close to people, let people touch the Torch and feel a part of it.
I then had to get back to Falmouth to be with the other Finn sailors who were meeting the Torch Relay in town. This is when the Olympic fever really started in the crowd and it was amazing to see. Somehow, totally unscripted, we ended up on the back of the Olympic Torch procession and got ushered through Falmouth centre where all the crowds had turned out and were seeing the torch as it passed through, there were some quite amazing reactions.
People were cheering, crying showing all sorts of emotion; it was just great to see.It's important that the public have taken the Torch arriving so well, that's going to be the difference between it being good games and great games, how the British people react and support this. If the atmosphere in Lands End and Falmouth and the rest of Cornwall is anything to go by then it's going to be an incredible Olympics.
I've just come back from a couple of land days as my spare Rita (Finn dinghy) was on display in London for a few days and it was great to see so many people interested in sailing and having a look around the boat, I'm now back in full training in the Weymouth Olympic venue ahead of next week's Skandia Sail for Gold regatta, it should be a great weeks racing.