First 2012 Olympic venue unveiled - Olympics London 2012

The first purpose-built sporting venue for the London 2012 Olympics has been completed with the end of construction at Weymouth & Portland Sailing Academy.

The £15m complex, which will also host the Paralympics events, was brought in under budget and ahead of schedule.

The world-class facility will play host to 400 athletes competing in 10 Olympic sailing categories.

National Lottery has raised £375m so far for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, it was announced.

The Olympic Lottery Distributor said it had reached half of the £750m Olympics funding target it intends to raise from sales of specially-designed lottery games.

'Great news'

Ralph Luck, of the Olympic Delivery Authority, will join gold medalist Paul Goodison at the unveiling of the sailing academy later.

The British sailing team's successes at the Beijing Olympics included a haul of six medals, four of them gold.

The early completion of the venue will give Britain's competitors a chance to train "well ahead of 2012", said Lord Coe, who chairs the organising committee.

Paul Goodison, who won gold in the Laser class at Beijing, said: "We save a lot of time travelling around the world when we can get out of bed and it is here on our doorstep.

"It is a fantastic opportunity, not just for myself, but some of the youngsters to see us in 2012 and aspire to 2016."

Councillor Howard Legg, Weymouth and Portland council's special projects portfolio holder, said: "It is ahead of time, on budget and opening today.

"It is great news for the community.

"This is a real local effort, and it is not just people involved with sailing.

"We have hoteliers learning different languages to help welcome people here in their own language."

'Fantastic upgrade'

John Tweed, chief executive of Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, said: "With these enhanced facilities they [sailors] will really be able to hone their skills before the 2012 games.

"It is just a fantastic upgrade to what is already here."

A 656ft (200m) breakwater protects the new facilities with a new pier offering two yacht-lifting cranes and a pontoon providing 70 berths for race boats.

The start of construction, using 70,000 tonnes of Portland stone, was delayed to avoid disrupting the nesting season of over-wintering birds around the local coastline.

National Lottery funding will contribute a total of about £2.2bn to the Games to help fund the east London-based Olympic Stadium, a new velopark, aquatics centre, handball arena and hockey centre.

GB Yngling trio future in doubt

The Yngling class, in which Britain have won gold at the last two Olympics, will not feature in the 2012 Games.

The International Sailing Federation has instead chosen the Elliott 6m for women's keelboat match racing in 2012.

Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson won Olympic Yngling gold for Great Britain at Qingdao in August.

Webb said: "We're very disappointed. The Elliott 6ms are heavy, overpowered and an incredible handful. I don't think we're big enough to race them."

However, the Royal Yachting Association, has said it will assess its programme for 2012 in light of the Yngling being dropped.

RYA racing manager and performance director John Derbyshire said: "We will now consider how best to take this forward.

"We look forward to our women adapting to the challenges of match racing in the Elliott 6m."

In a statement the RYA added: "We welcomes the decision to select the equipment as the Elliott 6m at this juncture, to allow nations to begin developing their national programmes, and ISAF World Cup event organisers to establish fleets of supplied equipment.

"The RYA is now calling for prompt clarification from ISAF as to the 2012 Olympic qualification process for the women's keelboat match racing event, so that the sailors and their support teams can begin to put their 2012 campaigns together."

In 2004, Ayton and Webb teamed up with Shirley Robertson to win the Yngling Olympic title in Athens.

The 2012 London Olympic sailing events will take place at Portland and Weymouth.

Dee Caffari prepares to start 27,000m round-the-world solo Vendee Globe Race

The 35 year-old former PE teacher who is making her debut in the 27,000 nms solo race will spend up to 100 days at sea with no one to lift her spirits in troubled times or share her delight in happier moments. So her ipod, she says, is likely to become her best chum and biggest champion.

She has a song for every mood from singalong specials such as Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to The Moon and S Club 7's Reach to inspirational numbers like Daft Punk's Harder, Better Faster Stronger and Queen's Don't Stop Me Now.

When she is deep in the Southern Ocean, passing ships might hear the strains of Elvis Presley's Way Down or Are you Gonna Go My Way by Lenny Kravitz and when she is drifting through the Doldrums pulling her hair out in frustration, she may draw on Elvis Costello's God Give Me Strength.

"Rather than write a blog each day, I think I will send through a song title so people can know exactly what I'm feeling," she said.

Vallamkali a traditional boat race-Nehru Trophy boat race punnamada lake

All-time greats in the history of the Olympic Games

Nadia Elena Comaneci
Nadia Elena Comaneci is a winner of five Olympic gold medals, and the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. Comaneci was the first Romanian gymnast to win the all-around title at the Olympics. She is also the youngest-ever Olympic gymnastics all-around champion.




Mark Spitz
Mark Spitz gave swimming an unparalleled and unforgettable memory in Munich. A total of seven gold medals, and as many world records, were won by the determined Californian during the Games of 1972, adding to what he described as his "disappointing" haul of five medals in 1968.




Carl Lewis
Carl Lewis won 10 Olympic medals including 9 golds, and 10 World Championships medals, of which 8 were golds, in a career that spanned from 1979 when he first achieved a world ranking to 1996 when he last won an Olympic title and subsequently retired. He was voted "Sportsman of the Century" by the International Olympic Committee and was also named "Olympian of the Century" by Sports Illustrated. He also helped transform track and field from its nominal amateur status to its current professional status.




Paavo Nurmi
If long distance running was in need of a role model, one would have to look no further than Paavo Nurmi. The legendary Finn smashed an incredible 22 world records, winning nine Olympic golds on the way. Nurmi won a total of 12 Olympic medals across three Games --- 1920, 1924 and 1928.




Jesse Owens
The German head of state had done everything in its power to leave a taste of Nazi propaganda in the mouths of all the competing nations at the 1936 Olympic Games. Jesse Owens, born the son of a slave in 1913 in segregated Alabama, however, left his own mark by winning four gold medals which would turn Adolf Hitler's theory of racial supremacy on its head.




Dawn Fraser
Whether it was due to a modest background, or a refusal to give up swimming even when banned in the early stages of her career, Dawn Fraser's determination led her to battle adversity and ultimately conquer the sprint events at three consecutive Olympic Games -- 1956, 1960 and 1964. Three Olympic gold titles in 1956, 1960 and 1964 in the 100m freestyle eventually brought the daughter of a Sydney docker justified success. She won a total of eight Olympic medals.




Bob Beamon
Robert "Bob" Beamon leapt to world prominence with a stunning long-jump gold in the 1968 Mexico Games. A virtual flight of 8.90m also broke the Olympic and world records, earning the American a deserved place in athletics history. Beamon's mark was not bettered until the 1991 Tokyo world championships when his compatriot Mike Powell jumped 8.95m.




Fanny Blankers-Koen
Fanny Blankers-Koen won four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She accomplished this as a mother of two, during a time when many disregarded women's athletics. Her background and performances earned her the nickname "the Flying Housewife."




Michael Johnson
At the Atlanta Games of 1996 Michael Johnson not only became the first athlete to take Olympic golds in both the 200m and 400m, but shattered the 200m world record with an eye-opening time of 19.32sec. In all, he won five gold medals across three Olympic Games.




Greg Louganis
Greg Louganis can simply be described as the total diver. At age 16, he took part in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he placed second in the tower event. in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Louganis won gold medals in both the springboard and tower diving events. He repeated his 1984 feat in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, although not without drama. Louganis suffered an injury, hitting his head on the diving board during the preliminary rounds while performing a reverse 2 1/2 pike; he completed the preliminaries, despite a concussion, then went on to repeat the dive during the finals, with nearly perfect scores, earning him the gold medal.




Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Jackie Joyner-Kersee is ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the women's heptathlon as well as in the women's long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals, in those two different events. "Sports Illustrated" magazine voted her the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th century.




Steve Redgrave
Great Britain's now legendary rower Steve Redgrave pushed his ageing body through more gruelling punishment at the Sydney Olympics as he won his fifth gold medal at consecutive Games - a feat never before achieved in endurance events. After previous victories from Los Angeles (1984) to Sydney 2000, he finally retired from the sport in 2000, and was given a knighthood for his remarkable achievements.




Kristin Otto
East Germany's Olympic swimming champion Kristin Otto is truly unique for the display of talent in three separate styles -- freestyle, backstroke and butterfly -- which brought her six gold medals during the Seoul Games of 1988.




Abebe Bikila
With his win in the marathon in the 1960 Rome Olympics, Abebe Bikila became the first black African Olympic champion. Bikila, who ran the marathon barefoot in Rome ntered Olympic history with a world best time of 2:15:16.2. Bikila also won the gold in the 1964 Games in Tokyo -- this time he ran with shoes and once again set a new world best time of 2:12:11.2.




Olga Korbut
Olga Korbut is a Belarusian, Soviet-born gymnast who won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympics, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the USSR team. At the 1972 Munich Olympics, she became the first person to do a backward somersault on the balance beam in competition. She was also the first to do a standing backward somersault on bars, and a back somersault to swingdown (Korbut Flip) on beam.

GB sailors take Star gold medal

Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson won Britain's fourth sailing gold as they held their nerve in a thrilling climax to the Star class event in Qingdao.

Percy and Simpson started the medal race in second place and had to fight tooth and claw with Sweden before getting to the line just ahead of them.

The gold was the ideal end to Britain's most successful regatta in a century.

Brazil's Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada took silver, and Sweden's Fredrik Loof and Anders Ekstrom claimed the bronze.

Britain finished on 45 points, eight in front of the Brazilians and Swedes. The South Americans took silver by virtue of their better result in the medal race.

Percy and Simpson added another gold medal to Britain's tally in Qingdao, following in the wake of Ben Ainslie, Paul Goodison and the Yngling crew of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson.

With six medals altogether, Britain's tally surpassed the five medals won in Sydney and Athens and matched the record from the London Games back in 1908.

GB sailing manager Stephen Park said his team's sustained success - this was the third Games in the row that they had topped the sailing medals table - was part of a more general change within British sport.

"It's absolutely fantastic, I'm over the moon with the medals and the gold for the Stars is the icing on the cake," said Park, who was thrown into the water by his jubilant team after the end of the regatta.

"It's a huge relief that we've actually managed to deliver against our target. I'm really pleased that Great Britain is having a fantastic Olympic Games and we're playing our part in that.

"We're working hard to try to keep up with my good mate Dave Brailsford (Team GB's cycling chief) and all of the cyclists and David Tanner (his equivalent with the British rowers) and the rowing team.



Courtesy BBC NEWS

Golds fire Britain up medal table

Britain's sailors, rowers and cyclists won four more gold medals on Sunday to match the team's Saturday surge and reach third in the Olympic medal table.

There were sailing golds for Yngling trio Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson, and Ben Ainslie in the Finn.

Zac Purchase and Mark Hunter took GB's first lightweight rowing gold, and Rebecca Romero won cycling's pursuit.

Fellow cyclist Wendy Houvenaghel and two rowing crews claimed silver medals, while gymnast Louis Smith won bronze.

After four golds on both Saturday and Sunday, Team GB's total of 11 golds for the Games moved them above Australia and Germany in the medal table.

British Olympians have won 25 medals in all, including six silver and eight bronze.

With seven days of action still remaining, Team GB have already matched their gold medal tally from Sydney in 2000, where they won 28 medals overall, and exceeded the nine golds from the last Games in Athens, where they finished with an overall haul of 30.

Britain have not claimed more than 11 golds in an Olympics since 1920. If they earn 16 golds or more by the end of the Games, it will mark their best performance in a century.

Britain wins Finn gold at Olympic sailing

(Photo credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images)

Ben Ainslie of Britain won the Finn gold medal at the Olympic Sailing Regatta in Qingdao on August 17.

Zach Railey from the United States took the silver medal and the bronze medal went to Guillaume Florent from France.

Qingdao's first gold goes to Great Britain

After weather delays postponed competition on August 16, Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson from Great Britain won the first completed medal race of the Olympic Sailing Regatta on August 17 to win gold in the Yngling (Women's Keelboat), the second consecutive Olympic gold for Great Britain in the boat class. The British team finished with 24 overall points, while the Netherlands finished second with 31 points overall. Greece won bronze with 48 points.


Courtesy : www.en.beijing2008.cn

Sailing Competition : Beijing Olympics 2008

49er crew from Australia, Canada, China and Austria, from left to right, compete during race 9 of the 49er class sailing competition of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Qingdao.


Courtesy www.hindustantimes.com