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Ben Ainslie and the of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson defied the weight of expectation to deliver gold medals in emphatic fashion in Qingdao.

The British sailors were hot favourites going into the Olympic regatta and as true champions they excelled under the pressure and completed clinical victories.

For Finn star Ainslie, it was a at successive Games to add to the silver he won as a 19-year-old in the Laser class in Atlanta in 1996, making him Britain's most successful Olympic sailor ever.

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Read any guide to British medal hopes for the Olympics and you are sure to come across the name of .

The 31-year-old sailor is going for a third straight gold, which would make him Britain's most successful Olympic sailor and put him ahead of the likes of Sebastian Coe, Daley Thompson and Dame Kelly Holmes in the gold medal tally and one behind the national treasure that is Matthew Pinsent.

Ainslie won the single-handed Laser class in Sydney in 2000 and the heavier one-man Finn class in Athens and goes to China as the five-time Finn world champion.

But just what is it that makes Ainslie so good?

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