Ainslie has a heavy day

Sailing

Sailing

The 19-year old Briton, Ben Ainslie, has suffered an unlikely setback in his quest to win the Laser World Championships in Simonstown, South Africa, writes Stuart Alexander.

Ainslie, who will be the youngest competitor ever to represent British sailing at the Olympics in Savannah, was leading the fleet at the cut which saw the top 50 progress to a gold fleet after six races, but suffered a bizarre setback when he was disqualified from the eighth race of 10 in the series for wearing clothing found to be above the legal weight limit.

This put Ainslie in second place, eight points behind Brazil's Robert Scheidt, but still ahead of Stefan Warkala of Germany. Another Briton, Ian Percy, was in fourth place.

In Murcia, Spain, which is staging three qualifiers for European places at the Olympics, Bethan Raggatt and Sue Carr were 10th out of 17 in the 470s, with 16 to qualify; Richard Stenhouse 12th out of 24 Finn singlehanders, with 20 to qualify, and Shirley Robertson 13th out of 26 Europe singlehanders, with 19 to qualify.