Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson claimed a gold medal for Britain with

victory in the Yngling medal race at the Olympic sailing regatta today.

In what amounted to a two-horse race for the gold against the Netherlands in

the Yngling class, Team GB came home in first place for the first time in the

regatta with the Dutch trailing in fifth in heavy conditions on the Yellow Sea.

And there were three more golden moments as Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase won the lightweight men's double sculls in the rowing, sailor Ben Ainslie won the Finn class and cyclist Rebecca Romero won the women's individual pursuit.

The British trio of Ayton, Webb and Wilson entered the regatta as heavy favourites after dominating the Yngling class for the past two years, winning back-to-back world championships, last year's Olympic test event in Qingdao and this year's European

championships.

But they went into the medal race with only a slender one-point advantage after

finishing fifth behind the winning Dutch crew of Mandy Mulder, Annermieke Bes

and Merel Witteveen in the eighth and final preliminary race on Friday.

Light, unsettled wind conditions saw the race being postponed from Saturday but

the boats were eventually flagged off in much heavier conditions 24 hours later

as strong winds and heavy rain descended on the waters off Qingdao.

The Dutch had the jump on the British boat at the start but it was Team GB that

reached the windward mark first, just a second in front of the Dutch and the

rest of the field.

They maintained their lead at the second mark and although they were overtaken

by Germany during the second leg, the Netherlands had dropped back to sixth, 51

seconds adrift of the British.

Ayton, Webb and Wilson regained the lead on the run to the finish line and

crossed the line seven seconds ahead of Germany and a minute in front of the

fifth-placed Dutch.

The Netherlands took the silver while Greece finished in third place in the

race to secure the bronze medal.

The crew were understandably thrilled about their win and Sarah Webb is

predicting more success for the crew in years to come.

She said: "I'm lost for words, it is such a relief. Our experience was

everything, we stayed sure and we got better."

Ayton added: "It's been brilliant, this campaign has been about pure

perfection and we're just an awesome team."

Wilson, who joined up with Webb and Ayton after their gold medal in Athens with

Shirley Robertson four years ago, was delighted with her first prize.

"This has been the dream and it hasn't really sunk in," she said.