Three blondes, four golds and Britain climb up to third in the medal table

Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson claimed a gold medal for Britain with
victory in the Yngling medal race at the Olympic sailing regatta today.

In what amounted to a two-horse race for the gold against the Netherlands in
the Yngling class, Team GB came home in first place for the first time in the
regatta with the Dutch trailing in fifth in heavy conditions on the Yellow Sea.

And there were three more golden moments as Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase won the lightweight men's double sculls in the rowing, sailor Ben Ainslie won the Finn class and cyclist Rebecca Romero won the women's individual pursuit.

The British trio of Ayton, Webb and Wilson entered the regatta as heavy favourites after dominating the Yngling class for the past two years, winning back-to-back world championships, last year's Olympic test event in Qingdao and this year's European
championships.
But they went into the medal race with only a slender one-point advantage after
finishing fifth behind the winning Dutch crew of Mandy Mulder, Annermieke Bes
and Merel Witteveen in the eighth and final preliminary race on Friday.

Light, unsettled wind conditions saw the race being postponed from Saturday but
the boats were eventually flagged off in much heavier conditions 24 hours later
as strong winds and heavy rain descended on the waters off Qingdao.

The Dutch had the jump on the British boat at the start but it was Team GB that
reached the windward mark first, just a second in front of the Dutch and the
rest of the field.

They maintained their lead at the second mark and although they were overtaken
by Germany during the second leg, the Netherlands had dropped back to sixth, 51
seconds adrift of the British.

Ayton, Webb and Wilson regained the lead on the run to the finish line and
crossed the line seven seconds ahead of Germany and a minute in front of the
fifth-placed Dutch.

The Netherlands took the silver while Greece finished in third place in the
race to secure the bronze medal.

The crew were understandably thrilled about their win and Sarah Webb is
predicting more success for the crew in years to come.

She said: "I'm lost for words, it is such a relief. Our experience was
everything, we stayed sure and we got better."

Ayton added: "It's been brilliant, this campaign has been about pure
perfection and we're just an awesome team."

Wilson, who joined up with Webb and Ayton after their gold medal in Athens with
Shirley Robertson four years ago, was delighted with her first prize.

"This has been the dream and it hasn't really sunk in," she said.