Ben Ainslie and Great Britain cap off dominant performance with Sydney SailGP title
"It's certainly been one of the best sailing events I've ever taken part in."
Saturday 29 February 2020 11:26, UK
Ben Ainslie and the British team wasted no time establishing themselves as the ones to beat this season as they put on impressive performances throughout Sydney SailGP to claim their first event title.
The first match race of SailGP Season 2 saw traditional rivals Great Britain and Australia face off and the four-time Olympic gold medalist capped his debut in style against the defending champion.
Hometown hero Tom Slingsby and the Australians found themselves behind from the start, incurring a penalty for entering the start box early and never managing to pull back.
The victory marked Great Britain's first event win in the global championship.
Ainslie said: "It's certainly been one of the best sailing events I've ever taken part in. Incredible conditions on the harbor, it doesn't really get any better than that. It's been magical."
The first fleet race of the day saw Ainslie pick up where he left off on Friday, notching a fourth-consecutive win while the Australia and Japan teams placed second and third.
Olympic champions Slingsby and Nathan Outteridge battled back-and-forth all of Season 1 and it was only fitting that the pair went into race five with a spot in the match race on the line.
Australia jumped out to an early lead that it never relinquished, with Slingsby guiding the defending champion to its first race win of the season and setting up a showdown with Ainslie. While they were unable to reclaim the event title, the Australians showed notable improvement on the second day of racing.
Slingsby said: "We seem to usually go better on our final day. It was all going well until the last race where we made a big mistake at the start."
After the first event of Season 2, Great Britain sits atop the leaderboard with 47 points, followed by Australia with 42, Japan with 39, Spain with 31, the United States at 31 and Denmark with 22, while France rounds out the standings with 14 points.
The second event of the season will see San Francisco Bay welcome SailGP's fleet from May 2-3, live on Sky Sports Arena.
