We catch up with Ben Ainslie

"It's largely thanks to support of those that play The National Lottery that athletes like myself have had the best possible chances at winning Olympic medals for Great Britain."

On the waters off Qingdao in Southern China last summer, Ainslie became Britain's greatest Olympic Games sailor.

His victory in the Finn class made it three successive gold medals and along with the silver he won in 1996 in Atlanta, he overtook Rodney Pattison as Britain's most successful Olympic Games' yachtsman.

Sailing was always in his blood. His father Roderick skippered a boat that, in 1973, competed in the first Whitbread Round The World Race and by the age of 11 Ben was among the honours when he won the under-12s Optimist Open and National Championships.

By 1995 he had won gold at the World Youth Championships, having first tasted life in a boat with his parents when he was only three. Now he is the skipper of Team Origin, the British boat which will make a challenge for the America's Cup in 2010. Winning that is one of his ambitions. The other, understandably, is a fifth Olympic Games medal in London in 2012.

His success has transformed the profile of British sailing at the Olympic Games, but Ainslie is as much at home competing in events like the Round The Island race in the Isle of Wight, never forgetting his sporting roots.