What happened in Athens, however, is different and Ainslie is still seething about the claim by French sailor Guillaume Florent that the Briton fouled him early in the second race of the Olympic series on day one of the regatta.
This is not the first time the two have clashed. At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, when Ainslie won a silver medal in the Laser class, Florent claimed he had been fouled by Ainslie, also in race two of the series. The following day there was an altercation on the water and it seems the die was cast between them.
Florent, 30, a multilingual engineer from Dunkirk, is known to be a volatile competitor. He is alleged to have had a fight with the New Zealand Laser sailor Hamish Pepper during a regatta some years ago and was once thrown out of an international Laser championship for threatening another competitor.
Ainslie told The Sunday Times he was convinced Florent had made it clear to him on the water that there was no issue between them, but had then gone to the jury as if the opposite had been the case. “He’s got no morals whatsoever,” said Ainslie. “This is by far the worst case of bad sportsmanship I’ve ever experienced in my sailing career.”
According to Ainslie the two sailors met each other on opposite tacks going up the first leg of the race, and the cross when it came, which determined who would be ahead, was close. Ainslie was on port tack, which means he had to give way if a collision was likely.
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Ainslie called to the Frenchman as he approached, checking that Florent did not consider it close enough for Ainslie to alter course and dip behind him. Ainslie got the clear impression he was not in danger of infringing and held his course. “But then after I’d crossed, he tried to make something out of it and I had a go at him,” said Ainslie. “Then he apologised and said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m being an idiot, don’t worry about it’, and that was it.” According to Ainslie, Florent did not call “protest” as he is bound to do under the rules.
“Going into the protest it was 70-30 against me and there is nothing you can do in that situation,” said Ainslie. In the end Ainslie answered Florent by winning the regatta anyway, but it is also true that he will never forgive the Frenchman. “When I see him I’ll probably say nothing and just wander past, hopefully with the gold medal,” he said earlier in the week. “I might dangle it in front of him — no, that would be unfair, that would be rubbing it in.”