After a week of racing in mixed conditions, Great Britain’s Ben Ainslie has won a silver medal at the Finn European championship in La Rochelle, France.

Ainslie went into the final day of the championship in second place, nine points behind the 1996 Olympic champion Mateusz Kusznierewicz.

After two attempts to start the race finally got underway under the black flag rule. There were a number of casualties, amongst them Ainslie, team mate Andrew Simpson, Sebastien Godefroid of Belgium and Emilios Papathanasiou of Greece. This meant that Ainslie would have to sit and wait and hope that no one else got a good enough score to overtake him.

The race win went to Kusznierewicz giving him a convincing win over the fleet and the title of Finn European champion. Ainslie managed to hold onto second place overall and Guillaume Florent of France moved up into bronze medal position. Fellow Team GBR sailor Andrew Simpson finished 17th.

With the Olympic Games only three months away the tension is building and it will be interesting to see who will top the leader board at the next big Finn event, SPA Regatta in Holland from the 26-30 May.

Overall Results

1, Mateusz Kusznierewicz, POL (2,2,2,1,3,(DNF),4,7,1) 22 pts

2, Ben Ainslie, GBR (28,4,1,4,2,15,2,2,(BFD)) 58 pts

3, Guillaume Florent, FRA (11,5,9,2,(13),10,8,4,13) 62 pts

Other GBR

17, Andrew Simpson (41,3,24,5,30,1,37,14,(BFD)) 155 pts

40, Matt Howard (46,48,27,31,51,36,(82),16,36) 291 pts