Jojo Doria

Weymouth, England

Sailors for Team Great Britain, including British star sailor Ben Ainslie, will embark on another projected successful Olympic bid at the opening ceremony at Weymouth Beach Friday evening.

The '12 Olympic sailing events will be hosted in Weymouth & Portland, Dorset starting Sunday, July 29 through Saturday, Aug. 11.

A majority of the 16-member Team GB sailing team will launch their home Olympic Games in front of an estimated 12,000 home crowd.

Four British sailors -- the two 470 crews of Hannah Mills-Saskia Clark and Luke Patience- Stuart Bithell -- will take part in the main Opening Ceremony in London.

Great Britain, the most successful sailing nation in the world, is considered strong favourite to top the medal table for the fourth consecutive Olympics.

It has captured 24 gold medals since the 1900 Games.

Ainslie, regarded as one of Britain's greatest ever Olympian, is expected to lead Team GB sailing's medal assault as he shoots for his fourth consecutive gold medal.

Ainslie is set to compete in the Finn class, a category he has dominated the past two Olympics.

Ainslie, who has been promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2009 following his successful bid at the 2008 Summer Games, won the silver at the '96 Olympics in Atlanta and then gold in the Sydney Games in the Laser class before moving to the larger Finn class.

There will be 10 events to be contested at the upcoming London Olympics. It will have six events for men and four for women in vessels from dinghies and keelboats to windsurfing boards.

The 2012 London Olympics will have three disciplines in sailing -- match racing, fleet racing and windsurfing.

There are two changes in the sailing classes from the '08 Games - - the women's Match race competition replaces the Yngling completion while the Tornado Class Catamaran competition has been dropped.

 

 

Ben Ainslie, British Sailors to Launch Olympic Bid at Weymouth Beach