Olympic Gold for Sarah Ayton

17.08.08

Team B&Q ambassador, Sarah Ayton, put in a fantastic performance in the Yngling Sailing Event at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games today, 17 August, to take her second, consecutive Olympic gold medal. Sailing with team mates Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, Sarah added a gold medal to the medal of the same colour she won at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

A delighted Sarah said:

“Winning an Olympic gold medal means you are the best in the world at what you do and that feeling is particularly special. Words can’t describe it. We can’t describe what we have been through these last four years - and two for Pippa - we looked at each other and it was just a look we have, we know we are the best - job done!”

After the final medal race was postponed for 24 hours due to the lack of wind, racing eventually got underway in 15 knots and choppy seas. Going into the medal race, which is worth double points and cannot be discarded, the British team was leading the overall scoreboard by a narrow one-point margin in front of the Dutch team of Mandy Mulder, Annemieke Bes and Merel Witteveen. With a silver medal guaranteed, the ‘three blondes in a boat’ just had to beat the Dutch over the water to win gold.

After a good start, the British boat rounded the top mark first and managed to hold onto the lead for most of the race, only dropping it for a small part of the race to the German team. The team knew, if needs be, they would match race the Dutch team to ensure they finished in front but for the British team, it never came that close. Crossing the finish line first, followed by the German team and then the Greeks, Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb had done exactly what they needed to do to win their second Olympic gold medal, and for relatively new crew member Pippa Wilson, her first.

Sarah explained:

“We knew that we had had lots of practice match racing. Our goal when we came here was to pursue a medal going into the final medal race and that is what we did. Our other training has been one on one because that was the next situation - it could have been one on one against one other boat, and so we have had loads of other people involved with the match race training. This was a bit of the match racing training today and luckily we had two or three days to rehearse in our minds what we had to go out there and do. Today we went out there and did it, and won the start and the race was really ours, and you know we gave a great performance.”

In winning a second gold medal Sarah and team mate Sarah Webb, became only the second British female athletes in history to win back to back Olympic gold medals – matching the achievements of their former helm, Shirley Robertson.

Jo Kenrick, Marketing & Customer Proposition Director of B&Q commented:

“Sarah was one of the first athletes to join Team B&Q and at the time had just won her first gold medal in Athens. She always showed drive and determination, qualities we value highly at B&Q, so I am delighted that her hard work has paid off and she has won her second Olympic gold medal.”

Sarah will remain at the Olympic sailing venue in Qingdao to watch her fiancé, Nick Dempsey, compete in the windsurfing class, before flying to Beijing to join the rest of Team GB at the closing ceremony on the 24th August.