Ainslie wins Finn singlehander gold medal with ease

Triple gold and silver Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie won the Finn singlehander gold medal with ease at the official test event in Weymouth.

He also won the medal race decider, was 31 points ahead of his nearest rival, Jonathan Lobert of France, and is in a strong position to be given early selection when nominations for the British team in 2012 open next month.

Winning silver, and pushing the British total up to six medals from the 10 events, were the current Star keelboat Olympic champions, Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson, who also won their medal race . Still winning gold was the 2008 silver medallist Robert Scheidt of Brazil with crew Bruno Prada and the Polish pair of Mateus Kunierewicz and Dominik Zycki was third.

But Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes left themselves with too much to do, came last in the last race, and ended fourth in the high performance 49er dinghy class won by Australia’s Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen.