BRITAIN'S sailors secured gold in two classes with a day to spare at the ISAF Sailing World Cup event in Hyeres yesterday.

Triple Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie and Portland's two-time world champions Alexandra Rickham and Niki Birrell dominated their respective Finn and Paralympic SKUD events.

The women’s match racing trio of Lucy Macgregor, Annie Lush and Kate Macgregor have also guaranteed at least a silver medal for Skandia Team GBR at this French Olympic Sailing Week by booking their place today's final, while the development SKUD team of Alex Hovden and Kate Mannerings are also assured of a silver with a maximum of two races left for the two-person Paralympic fleet.

With a scoreline boasting six race wins from the 10 races sailed so far, Ainslie has an unassailable 29 point lead heading into today'sfinal medal race, booking in his regatta victory with a race win, followed by 4,3 from the fleet’s three races yesterday.

The day proved less rosy, however, for team-mate Giles Scott who went into the penultimate day in third place overall, but his medal hopes came to a rapid halt when he was forced to retire from both of the first two races after receiving two yellow flag penalties for sculling from the jury. The Wyke Regis sailor still makes the cut for the 10-boat finale today, but in seventh place both he and team-mate Ed Wright (eighth overall) are now out of medal contention.

“It’s been a really good week, I’m happy with the result and it’s nice to win with a day to spare – it takes the pressure off the medal race,” Ainslie commented.

“I’m really looking forward to the next regatta which will be Skandia Sail for Gold in five or six weeks’ time which, being at the Olympic venue, is obviously a bit more relevant in terms of the Games next year. Hopefully I can keep the form going and keep the results coming along for that regatta as well, so that’s really the focus now.

“The last two regattas have been really good for me – I seem to be happy with the kit development we’ve done over the winter and speed seems to be reasonably good in some conditions and very good in others, so hopefully I’ve got a package I’m happy with so I’ve just got to go out there and race well,” the 34-year-old continued.

“The important thing is to try and keep the consistency, and try and keep things rolling along for the next event.”

In the Paralympic SKUD class, Rickham and Birrell have a scoresheet which would make even Ainslie envious, posting eight race wins from the nine races sailed so far to amass an eight point lead over fellow Brits Alex Hovden and Kate Mannerings.

With a maximum of two races left and a worst score of second in the six boat fleet, Rickham and Birrell cannot lose the gold medal, with Hovden and Mannerings comfortable in the silver medal spot.

“Alex and I have had a good week. We’ve sailed well for all the week really,” Birrell explained. “We had a small blip on Wednesday but all week has been very light and very shifty so to have eight wins and a second out of nine races when it’s light and shifty, we’d have taken that at the start of the week.

“It’s definitely wasn’t as easy as the scoreline might suggest. We were really taking each race at a time and trying to really concentrate on each race and each manoeuvre and not really worry about how far ahead we were or not. "It was about being cautious at the right times and attacking at the right times and I think we got the right balance this week.”

Rickham was also full of praise for Hovden and Mannerings for their World Cup performance this week.

“It’s great for the class – it’s good to see that things are starting to open up and we’re hopefully getting some more depth, especially in Britain as that would be really helpful to us as well. “It’s great to see Alex on the startline this week and doing so well, but that starts turning the screw on us a bit doesn’t it? We might actually have some trials on our hands!”

A long day on the water for Macgregor, Lush and Kate Macgregor proved worthwhile when they came through their women’s match racing quarter-final 3-1 against Genny Tulloch (USA), and then ended local hopes of a berth in today's final by beating Claire Leroy’s team 3-1 in the semi-final. The trio will meet Sally Barkow (USA) in the gold medal match after she beat the Netherlands’ Renee Groeneveld.

Skandia Team GBR has further medal opportunities on today's final day of the regatta. In the 470 women’s event, gold is already assured to the Spanish crew of Tara Pacheco-Berta Betanzos, but Penny Clark-Katrina Hughes and Hannah Mills-Saskia Clark will be in the fight for the remaining podium spots with Clark-Hughes currently second overall and Mills-Hughes third. Sophie Weguelin and Sophie Ainsworth ensured a third British boat in the top 10 medal race.

Megan Pascoe is in silver medal position and Helena Lucas is just one point off of third in the 2.4mR Paralympic class, which could see two races on their final day, while in the Sonar three-person Paralympic event John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Steve Thomas have moved up to third overall on this penultimate day.

Weymouth's birthday girl Bryony Shaw, who turned 28 yesterday, has kept in touch of the podium spots – she’s fifth overall, five points off of the bronze medal.

A disappointing day of 21,15,11 has effectively ended Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign’s hopes of a first 49er class World Cup medal after their strong start to the week. They are sixth overall heading into the medal race, with defending champions Paul Brotherton and Mark Asquith eighth.

A premature start in the only race of the day for the Laser class saw Paul Goodison’s late surge up the leaderboard come to an end – he goes into the medal race in eighth overall, but out of medal contention.

Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell could not make the medal race spots in the 470 men’s event, ending their regatta in 16th place with Laser Radial sailors also missing out with Charlotte Dobson and Alison Young in 18th and 21st Racing at the French Olympic Sailing Week concludes today, with the final races starting from 10.00hrs local time.

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