The Monsoon Cup in Malaysia this week will be the last match racing event for the five of us who have been sailing under Team Origin colours, so we are looking for a great result which would give us the chance to win the 2010 World Match Racing Tour.

By Ben Ainslie

We are third overall with the most to gain and least to lose by pulling out all the stops, which means trying to make life harder for the other teams but focusing mainly on what we can achieve.

The events in October when Sir Keith Mills publicly withdrew Team Origin from the America's Cup arena were incredibly frustrating.

For Keith, this was obviously an extremely hard decision and one that I know was not taken lightly.

From a team perspective it was a difficult decision to deal with. There had been a few raised eyebrows when a 72-foot wing sailed multihull was announced as the new class of boat for AC34 and 2013 was named as the date.

 

As an Olympic sailor, who is dependent on commercial sponsorship, I accept the need to develop the commercial side of the sport but it scares me that there is not enough consideration for the integrity of the competition itself. There have been plenty of analogies with other sports but golf and cricket spring to mind as sports that also struggle to fit into the ideal time frame for TV.

A cricket Test match can last for five days and, by the end, you may only get a draw. But it is the quality of the sport that encourages you to watch. My fear with sailing is that the quality of the racing will become an after thought to the commercial considerations of the event management.

In the last few weeks my focus has switched to the Olympic Finn dinghy and preparing for 2012. I have a lot of hard work to get back up to my fighting weight and fitness and I can only do that if I'm focusing 100 per cent on the Finn.

I don't see myself doing anything else next year and although it would be nice to do some TP52 or Extreme 40 racing, it would have to fit around the Finn schedule. That is my priority.

The Perth International Regatta was pretty much as expected. It was my second Finn regatta of the year after the Skandia Sail for Gold event in August. It was a tough competition, especially physically in the first few days of racing. My fifth place finish was not the first place I am always after but it was a solid result given my time back in the boat.

It just shows the strength of the fleet. I was happy with my performances at Weymouth and Perth considering the amount of sailing I've been doing and my fitness levels.

I know how much work is required to get back to where I need to be. I am about five kilos off my ideal weight so have a lot of work to do in the gym, not just on the aerobic front but in terms of weight gain and muscle mass. This will be the hardest test I have ever faced physically but I am up for that challenge.

There is something very refreshing about doing the hard yards on the Olympic road and it's great to have control of my destiny.

By Ben Ainslie - read the full article in the Daily Telegraph here