UK Sport

Month of world class events to begin and end on home waters

Ben Ainslie
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Jessica Whitehorn 04 August 2010

The 2010 Skandia Sail For Gold Regatta, supported for the fifth year running by UK Sport’s World Class Events Programme, begins at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy on Monday with 1000 athletes from 56 nations set to compete at the at the London 2012 Games venue. The event kicks off a month of events taking place on home soil and water, across the UK.

Many of the world’s top sailors have signed up to the Regatta, including European, World and Olympic champions, who will all descend on Weymouth and Portland from the 9 - 14 August for this International event. Triple Olympic gold medalist Ben Ainslie returns to compete in the Finn class, nearly two years to the day that he secured his third Olympic gold in Beijing.

He said: “I think Skandia Sail for Gold is a really important regatta for me to attend to not only check in with where the rest of the Finn fleet are, and what developments have taken place since I've been away, but also to familiarise myself with the venue and conditions as I've actually not raced an Olympic Class boat at Weymouth and Portland for about five or six years.”

Utilising the Skandia Sail For Gold Regatta website, the event will deliver sailing to a global audience through live tracking, commentary and interviews via Sail.TV player, live interactive blogs from Mark Chisnell and live radio via 87.7fm. The event will be open to the general public who can go down each day to follow the racing onshore, where there will be a giant screen broadcasting video and tracking, alongside live commentary. Fans can also engage with the event via YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Following the Regatta in Weymouth, UKA’s London Disability Athletics Challenge will take place, hosted immediately following the Aviva London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, on Sunday 15 August. This event will form part of the qualification for the IPC World Athletics Championships and, of course, crucial preparations for London 2012.

Meanwhile The FA are hosting the 2010 IBSA World Blind Football Championships in Hereford from August 14 – 22, in what will be the largest disability football event ever to be held in England, and act as a direct qualifier for the Paralympics in London in 2012.

Next stop for the National Lottery funded World Class Events Programme will be Scotland, where the 2010 CPISRA European Football 7-a-side Championships will take place in Glasgow from 17 - 29 August, followed by the European Water Ski Championships in Thorpe from 18 August and the Women’s Rugby World Cup in Twickenham from 20 August.

The final event in August’s bumper schedule will be back on the water, where Hayling Island will host the Laser World Championships from 27 August to 5 September.

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