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Ainslie: Good comeback
"Compared to my last Olympic starts this is much better and if you look at the results for the rest of the fleet they've been up and down as well, so it's not a bad start."
Ben Ainslie
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The British Yngling crew of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson made a flying start to their gold medal quest in Qingdao, while Ben Ainslie recovered from a bad start to win his second race in the Finn.
Both classes are expected to yield gold medals for Team GB in Beijing, and while the 'three blondes' of the Yngling boat had a comfortable day, Ainslie struggled at first but showed his class to recover.
The trio of the Yngling boat endured a shocking start to their opening race of the regatta, with the back-to-back world champions lagging behind in 15th and last place at the first mark.
After reducing the 52-second gap they had behind leaders Greece, the GB boat moved up to ninth but then fell back to 11th by the time they rounded the final mark.
The favourites produced a sparkling final run though and they came flying through to take second, 29 seconds behind Austria and ten seconds ahead of Russia.
In the second race, Ayton, Webb and Wilson also had a solid performance, this time coming home in third place in a race dominated by the Netherlands boat.
The Brits moved on to five points after their two performances and they lead the standings after the first day's sailing - four points ahead of Canada.
Ainslie recovery
Ainslie, meanwhile, had a poor start to his campaign as he bids to become Britain's most successful sailor ever, as he threw away a ten-second lead in the opening race.
31-year-old Ainslie held a lead after the final mark but could not get going in the light winds that had delayed the start of racing in Qingdao for 25 minutes.
In the end the two-time Olympic gold medallist trailed home in tenth place, over a minute behind Greek winner Aimilios Papathanasiou.
Ainslie is unbeaten in the Finn class in regattas since the Athens Olympics though, and he bounced right back to win the second race to get right back into the gold medal picture.
Turning in seventh at the first mark, Ainslie roared into the lead on the following leg and held on all the way to the line.
The win took Ainslie on to 11 points and move six behind Rafal Szukiel of Poland who leads.
"My own experience with the Olympics has always been having a disastrous first day, so it doesn't feel quite so bad. Hopefully I can build from this in due course," said Ainslie.
Breeze
"In the first race, I was in the lead and the breeze shut down and came in from a different direction, and I lost 10 places.
"It's something I think we're all going to have to deal with here. It's going to happen to everyone at some stage. It's just about trying to keep your powder dry and wait for your chances.
"The second race was much better but on the final run the breeze stayed in so I was able to keep a little lead there and get the win.
"Compared to my last Olympic starts this is much better and if you look at the results for the rest of the fleet they've been up and down as well, so it's not a bad start."
Each class of boats take part in ten open races before the top contenders go into the medal race to decide the title.
