Ben Ainslie: Golden buoy happy to make waves

He is our greatest sailing Olympian but he's not afraid to hit out at Britain's couch potatoes or to plunge into icy waters off Weymouth in his black tie. Nick Townsend meets Ben Ainslie

(David Ashdown)

You could imagine an awfully clever BBC mind at work. Sports Personality of the Year always needs that imaginative "edge" to its accompanying footage. So, not content with filming Ben Ainslie in a Finn, the dinghy class in which he won the last of his three Olympic gold medals, in Qingdao back in August, for inclusion in the programme, somebody thought it would be a spiffing wheeze to have him don black-tie garb and plunge into the icy water, for reasons that will become clear on14 December.

The sea temperature off Weymouth in mid-November is hardly at its most welcoming, but he finally succumbed. By the time he arrives in the West End for a welcome glass of beer in the bar where we meet, his teeth have stopped chattering. "Bloody cold," he mutters. "They'd better use it, or I'll go mad."

I console him with the thought that this is the price of being one of Great Britain's Olympic heroes. There is a mock grimace of resignation. Heco-operates because it will project the sport he has enriched for two decades on primetime BBC1; not because of any desire to promote his own image. In all the years I have known him, he has remained modest and self-effacing.Celebrity is not his penchant.

One hopes his discomfort was not in vain. Not that he is going to claim the main award. At a best-priced 200-1 there is no more chance he will win it than John Sergeant's rumba would have sent the Strictly Come Dancing judges into raptures. But then the Macclesfield-born but Cornwall-raised sailor is quite content with World Sailor of the Year, an award he won recently for a third time. He is already decorated with an OBE and there could, you suspect, be further recognition forthcoming in the New Year list a few days after the BBC's sports bash, when the nationwill be reminded of its sportsmen and women's achievements three months ago. Certainly the Olympic Games, and specifically those to come in London, could benefit from a boost.

The multiplying of the Olympic budget at an economically precarious time has left those with faint hearts to question the wisdom of the whole project. Even the minister in charge of the London Games, Tessa Jowell, has stated that Britain would not have bid to host the 2012 Olympics if the Government had known that a recession was approaching. Inevitably, some sceptics eagerly seized upon her words. One columnist actually suggested the Games should be offloaded to Paris.

"I think that's ridiculous," says Ainslie. "I can understand the argument if people are losing their homes or become unemployed, but the Olympics is going to employ so many people in construction and running the event, there will be a real feel-good factor. Hopefully in three years' time we'll be out of this financial crisis or at least on the up – 2012 will give people a lift, something to be excited about. Yes, there'll be some people banging on about the money, and saying, 'Shouldn't it go to a better cause?' Hopefully at the end they'll see that not only was it a great event, but it will have left a legacy – andthat was the core component of the proposal to the IOC [International Olympic Committee] which won it.

"Yes, finances are a huge issue in everybody's life, but it's not everything – especially when you go to countries like Australia and New Zealand and see how powerful sport is there, and what a positive effect it has on the national psyche and on people's lives from a young age, as they go through to adulthood, making them more competitive. To me, they are much healthier nations for it, not just physically but mentally too." Ainslie maintains that there is still a lack of competitive instinct in Britain. "I think we're generally too happy to be second best," he insists. "Somehow it's cool to be not really interested in winning, whereas in Australia and New Zealand everybody absolutely wants to be the best.

"You definitely see that over there. When they get into later life and have a career, they carry the focus they have from doing sport as a youngster into business. Getting up at five in the morning and working like maniacs. Then they get out in the evening and have a good time. I think we need to have a bit more of that attitude in the UK rather than everybody wandering off and watching Sky TV or getting on their PlayStation, and moaning and whingeing about everything.

"Yes, it's easy for me as an Olympic gold medallist to be saying everyone else should be doing the same as I have, but I'm not saying that. It's more that I believe people should get out and try. It's not necessarily [about] winning. It's about more people at a young age getting out and trying sport, trying to compete and just pushing themselves a little bit, rather than saying, 'I can't be bothered'. You don't necessarily have to be good at it."

Ainslie, 31, will bid for a fourth Olympic gold in 2012 at Weymouth, where the sailing will be staged. But before that he will translate his talents to skippering Britain's multimillion-pound America's Cup boat, TeamOrigin, one of those modern-day galleons. That is assuming the legal wrangling over the staging of the 33rd America's Cup between the American syndicate BMW Oracle Racing and the cup holder Alinghi can be resolved so that the event can go ahead, probably in 2011.

"Everybody is looking at them and expecting them to sort it out so the America's Cup can get back on the water," Ainslie says. "If that does not happen, the whole sailing world will look very badly on them."

The British team, whose principal and founder is Sir Keith Mills, are regarded as potentially very strong. They are preparing by participating in a world match-racing tour, where crew numbers vary between four and six. They finished third in Bermuda and now head for New Zealand and the grand finale in Malaysia. Early in the new year they travel to Auckland, where 17-strong crews will sail the yachts that were used for America's Cup racing in Valencia last year to contest the Louis Vuitton Cup.

Since Beijing, Ainslie has also skippered Sir Richard Branson's boat Virgin Money in a tilt at the trans-atlantic monohull speed record. Two days out from New York, the boat, in which Branson and his children Sam and Holly were among the crew, suffered substantial damage to the mainsail. It meant the bid had to be abandoned. You sense that Ainslie will be back for more. "If conditions were right, and we managed to keep the boat in one piece, we could absolutelyobliterate the record," he forecasts.

It is clear that Ainslie does not do relaxation. He smiles at the observation. "I found after past Olympics that the best way to get back to some normality was to return to doing as much racing as I could," he says, though he adds: "This time there's been by far the biggest reaction to the success of the team, with more offers to go on TV shows and endorse products, do personal appearances and give talks. The nicest reaction is people stopping you in the street and saying, 'Well done', which never really happened to me before. Now it is. As a sailor, that's really quite a step, in a way."

An increased profile also brings its attendant perils. Having appeared in the showbiz section of a red-top newspaper recently, he is determined that, from now on, interest in him is confined to the sports pages. He insists: "I want interest in me for the right reasons, for doing well at my sport, and promoting good values, not because of hanging out with celebrities. That's not really something I'm interested in."

He prefers that 2008 will be recalled as the year when he recorded "by far my most exhilarating and exciting win": the victory in the final race at Qingdao which confirmed gold was his, and meant that, with three successive golds and a silver at Atlanta, he overtook Rodney Pattison as Britain's most successful sailing Olympian. He only needed to finish within six places of the American challenger, Zach Railey, but actually won comfortably.

"I was far more animated than I'd ever been before, more pumped up with that than I had been with any other event at any other Games, because I was able to win the race and win gold in a fitting style," he says.

I broach the Vendée Globe, the single-handed round-the-world race currently under way. He is quite happy to be giving that a miss. "But I'm keeping an eye on the progress of [Britain's] Mike Golding, Dee Caffari and Sam Davies," he says. "Ocean racing is definitely exciting to compete in. The thing that gets me going is the non-stop crewed or solo record. That'll be something good to have a crack at, one day. But get the America's Cup out of the way first." He adds: "That's the good thing about sailing, there are so many challenges. You're never going to get bored." That would never do. Not for sailing's adrenalin junkie.

Life and times

Name: Charles Benedict Ainslie OBE.

Born: 5 February 1977, Macclesfield.

Early life: Attended Peter Symonds College and Truro School in Cornwall.

Family ties: Son of Roderick Ainslie, who skippered a boat that took part in the first Whitbread Round the World race in 1973. Ben started sailing at the age of four and first competed aged 10. His first international competition was the 1989 Optimist World Championships in Japan, where he finished 37th.

Honours: A Beijing gold medal made it three successive Olympic golds (added to a silver in Atlanta), overtaking Rodney Pattison as Britain's most successful sailing Olympian. Awarded MBE in 2001 and became an OBE in 2005.

America's Cup: He is the skipper of Britain's America's Cup boat for 2011, Team Origin.

Ben Ainslie is a member of Skandia Team GBR. For more details: skandiateamgbr.com