:00:00. > :00:14.30 years. Now it is time for HARDtalk.
:00:15. > :00:19.Welcome to HARDtalk. Like yesterday is the most successful Olympic
:00:20. > :00:23.sailor of all time. The dish four`time Olympic gold`medallist Sir
:00:24. > :00:29.Ben Ainsle. In September he was part of team USA, which enjoyed a
:00:30. > :00:33.spectacular victory against team New Zealand at the America's Cup in San
:00:34. > :00:36.Francisco. But sailing is becoming more and more expensive, with
:00:37. > :00:40.critics saying it is now a niche sport funded by billionaire is and
:00:41. > :00:46.enjoyed by the few. How can its appeal be broadened?
:00:47. > :01:12.`` billionaires. Sir Ben Ainsle, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:13. > :01:16.Thank you for having me. You started sailing when you were eight. I know
:01:17. > :01:22.we are talking about water, but you had a baptism of fire? It is a great
:01:23. > :01:28.story. When I was a youngster I learnt to shell with my family. My
:01:29. > :01:36.parents had been handed down a small dinghy. I work up on Christmas
:01:37. > :01:43.morning and found it. It was in my bedroom. I went down to the local
:01:44. > :01:49.beach with my dad. I had never assailed on my own before. He pushed
:01:50. > :01:54.me off on Christmas morning. He said that we are off to the pub for
:01:55. > :01:59.lunch, a mile up the creek. He pushed me off and I will never
:02:00. > :02:04.forget the sensation of, as an eight`year`old, being in total
:02:05. > :02:08.control of my own destiny with no adults around telling me what to do.
:02:09. > :02:15.That sense of freedom is something I will never forget. No lifejacket?
:02:16. > :02:22.What your father did was barely legal. Exactly. Social Security
:02:23. > :02:28.would have a field day today. But he developed an obsession for the
:02:29. > :02:34.sport. That is right. Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated by
:02:35. > :02:37.sailing. It is such a diverse sport. There are so many different
:02:38. > :02:44.challenges. But one of the most powerful women in sport, Baroness
:02:45. > :02:48.Sue Campbell, has said that parents who push their children to play a
:02:49. > :02:52.specific game from a young age, if we specialise too early we actually
:02:53. > :02:57.build our children to become very bored and almost stale with the
:02:58. > :03:03.activity. Can parents put a child of a sport? I would agree with that.
:03:04. > :03:07.You have to be careful with young people. They are developing at such
:03:08. > :03:12.a fast age. Just because someone happens to be fantastic at a certain
:03:13. > :03:20.age group, does not mean will become a world beater. Your parents really
:03:21. > :03:26.supported you. That is right. The opposite for children is true. My
:03:27. > :03:34.parents were a huge support. You'd be pushing? No. My dad said that if
:03:35. > :03:40.I wanted to try and do a sport properly, you should do it `` give
:03:41. > :03:44.it everything you have got. But they never criticised if I could not get
:03:45. > :03:52.the result. They just love the fact that I was into something. I wasn't
:03:53. > :03:55.causing too much trouble. I was out there and working hard. You are in
:03:56. > :04:02.quite a sailing mad family. If you feel that you missed out on other
:04:03. > :04:06.experiences? There is an element of that. When I was 17 and had to make
:04:07. > :04:13.a choice between studying for university or racing for the Olympic
:04:14. > :04:19.Games in 1996. At that time I really felt the best option was to train
:04:20. > :04:24.for the Olympics. So I missed out on a university education and some
:04:25. > :04:29.friendships that a maybe would have had if I had given more time to
:04:30. > :04:38.other things in life. But I would not change any of the decisions are
:04:39. > :04:45.made. Was sailing a refuge for you? You were bullied at school. You had
:04:46. > :04:49.a skin condition. I could have probably chosen a better sport. It
:04:50. > :04:59.is quite uncomfortable a lot of the time. But did it make you retreat
:05:00. > :05:09.into your sailing? I think so. People try and talk up the amount of
:05:10. > :05:13.bullying that I receive. All kids at times suffer from some kind of
:05:14. > :05:18.intimidation of bullying. In my case it was upsetting and I found it
:05:19. > :05:21.difficult to deal with at that age. Sailing was something that I was
:05:22. > :05:28.good at and could express myself through my sailing. It gave me the
:05:29. > :05:32.determination to achieve something. It make you very competitive. It has
:05:33. > :05:40.been set a view by Henry Winter back in 2008 that you have a sustained
:05:41. > :05:47.level of ruthlessness that grips you when you settle across the water.
:05:48. > :05:52.You are very competitive. I am. I am very competitive with my sailing. If
:05:53. > :05:59.I am in a sailing race, I want to win. But in other areas of life,
:06:00. > :06:04.playing football with my friends or golf, I am not competitive at all.
:06:05. > :06:11.You say it all for the sailing. Exactly. I just let other people
:06:12. > :06:15.take it. There is an idea of being balanced between competitive or a
:06:16. > :06:23.big on the site of good sportsmanship. You won your first
:06:24. > :06:30.Olympic medal in 1996. In 2000 in Sydney you when your first gold
:06:31. > :06:37.medal. But you want another gold medal in a fairly controversial
:06:38. > :06:44.circumstance. You are accused of blocking tactics. Is that good
:06:45. > :06:47.sportsmanship? The thing with that Olympics is that we have seen this
:06:48. > :06:54.tactics being used before, but never at the Olympic Games. It highlighted
:06:55. > :07:02.what was going on. There was a lot of controversy about it. Ultimately
:07:03. > :07:06.I used the rules of the road. I got an advantage on the opposition and
:07:07. > :07:13.got the gold medal. People were very annoyed, the Brazilians. You needed
:07:14. > :07:17.a police escort. There were a few Brazilians who were not too happy.
:07:18. > :07:23.But when I went to Rio, they could not have been more accommodating.
:07:24. > :07:28.That style of racing is something that we saw developed after the 2000
:07:29. > :07:36.Olympics. It is now encouraged by the format. The top ten boats go
:07:37. > :07:40.into the final race. That encourages the interaction between the
:07:41. > :07:46.competitors for the medals. It was quite groundbreaking at the time. In
:07:47. > :07:57.seven terms it was perfectly within the rules. The UK top temperature of
:07:58. > :08:01.times? Clearly. `` hot tempered. There was the incident in Australia
:08:02. > :08:05.during the World Championship when you got so fed up with the
:08:06. > :08:13.television are tampering your course, you swam over to them and
:08:14. > :08:19.remonstrated with them. In hindsight, that was a mistake. I
:08:20. > :08:30.paid the price for that in being disqualified from two races. You
:08:31. > :08:36.wrote your lesson? For sure. It was a bad lesson to have to go through.
:08:37. > :08:39.But when you are racing at that level for the World Championship and
:08:40. > :08:47.an Olympic medal, you are fighting as hard as you can. It is an intense
:08:48. > :08:50.sport. When you are working that hard it is hard to make those key
:08:51. > :08:57.decisions and deal with the ultimate frustration that I was. You are now
:08:58. > :09:04.being applauded for your latest success with the US team guiding
:09:05. > :09:08.them to victory over New Zealand in the America's Cup. It must rank as
:09:09. > :09:16.one of the greatest comebacks in history. It you like being the
:09:17. > :09:20.underdog and surprising everybody? Everybody thought New Zealand was
:09:21. > :09:29.going to win. I do not think we enjoyed the situation. We started on
:09:30. > :09:34.`2 points before the race for a technical infringement. It was
:09:35. > :09:37.amazing to be part of a team that really stuck to their guns. There
:09:38. > :09:45.was no finger`pointing or heated arguments. We made some changes to
:09:46. > :09:52.the crew and the setup of the boat. It came down to the designers. It
:09:53. > :10:00.was akin to Formula 1. America's Cup is the saving version of Formula 1.
:10:01. > :10:06.It was just fantastic to be part of that team. In the buildup to the
:10:07. > :10:14.America's Cup, it was very tragically marred by the fact that
:10:15. > :10:19.Andrew Simson was killed in May while sailing for a Swedish team.
:10:20. > :10:27.His catamaran capsized and he drowned. That was dramatic for you.
:10:28. > :10:35.He was one of my best friends. It was a heartbreaking moment to
:10:36. > :10:41.witness that crashed, that accident. The skipper for the art in this team
:10:42. > :10:50.won the all a bit medals together. We were very close. To witness that
:10:51. > :10:57.and to have to deal with that was very hard for everybody close to
:10:58. > :11:07.Andrew. Did it make you feel like quitting? It did. After the accident
:11:08. > :11:11.a lot of us were close friends. We were dealing with the situation. I
:11:12. > :11:15.remember sitting with Iain Percy, talking about what we were going to
:11:16. > :11:24.do in the future. It makes you stop and re`evaluate what you are doing
:11:25. > :11:28.with your life. Did it make you question this development that we
:11:29. > :11:34.have seen in sailing in the past few years, using these catamarans that
:11:35. > :11:40.are at a speed of over 60 kilometres per hour. An American software
:11:41. > :11:45.billionaire who owns the US team that won the America's Cup says a
:11:46. > :11:52.lot of people are certainly interested in sailing. Does the
:11:53. > :11:58.sport this fast, more dangerous vessels in order to attract the
:11:59. > :12:04.fans? A lot of us were surprised when the decision was made by the
:12:05. > :12:16.leaders of the team to shift from the traditional hulls. I was one of
:12:17. > :12:22.the original critics. But when we saw the event, it was really
:12:23. > :12:30.phenomenal. It was groundbreaking. We have seen that with the America's
:12:31. > :12:39.Cup. The level of effort that has gone into the production and the
:12:40. > :12:45.speed of the votes, the athleticism required has frankly been awesome.
:12:46. > :12:49.`` boats. Coming back after the America's Cup and the response from
:12:50. > :12:56.people in the street who would not necessarily watch saving suddenly
:12:57. > :13:01.get it. `` sailing. They can understand what is happening. All of
:13:02. > :13:10.a sudden they want to watch sailing. It is truly transformative. One
:13:11. > :13:12.newspaper in New Zealand said that it would be like living the Ferrari
:13:13. > :13:20.in the garage and taking the Morris 1000 to work. Do you think that the
:13:21. > :13:28.slow hulls should be ditched for ever? I do not know that for ever.
:13:29. > :13:36.But I think the new hulls are here to stay. Just because of the
:13:37. > :13:43.success. But you do not think ditching the old hulls is desirable
:13:44. > :13:48.either? It clearly has a place in professional sailing. If it has a
:13:49. > :13:54.place in the immediate future of the America's Cup, I doubt very much.
:13:55. > :13:57.But that is a decision for the team leaders to make. They are the
:13:58. > :14:06.defenders of the America's Cup. They will write the rules. They wanted to
:14:07. > :14:12.bring the Spectator closer to the shore, but the ratings were still
:14:13. > :14:18.very low compared to others ports. The opening weekend generated an
:14:19. > :14:21.audience of 1 million? It is not create a huge audience, but as we
:14:22. > :14:31.went through this amazing comeback story, the actual figures of the
:14:32. > :14:37.commercial returns and TV audiences have increased. It has been a huge
:14:38. > :14:46.success of the sport, something we have never seen before in sailing.
:14:47. > :14:48.It is very positive for the future. Failing has usually been confined to
:14:49. > :14:53.the backwaters of the sporting world. It is that good results would
:14:54. > :14:59.lead you to becoming a household name in any other sport. Why do you
:15:00. > :15:05.think it is that sailing is seen as a niche sport? In the past it has
:15:06. > :15:12.been seen as a lease is sport, gin and tonic is on the upper deck, and
:15:13. > :15:23.comments like that. In the past 15 years it has changed hugely when you
:15:24. > :15:27.look at the amazing achievements. The results we had as an Olympic
:15:28. > :15:35.sport, sailing is one of the top achievers. Now, the America's Cup is
:15:36. > :15:39.changing this misconception that sailing is an elitist sport. It is a
:15:40. > :15:45.sport for normal people, for athletes. It is still very
:15:46. > :15:55.synonymous with money, isn't it? It takes $100 million to fund a sailing
:15:56. > :16:00.campaign in the America's Cup. The America's Cup has traditionally been
:16:01. > :16:05.a race for early mess. It is an eye`catching one. The tide is
:16:06. > :16:11.turning on that. In the future will see more commercial teams racing.
:16:12. > :16:15.They are keen to slash the cost is and budgets these campaigns.
:16:16. > :16:21.Traditionally it has been around the hundred million dollars to have a
:16:22. > :16:26.successful campaign. We hope to see they come down in the future. It
:16:27. > :16:34.means you have a small number of people in almost monopolistic grip
:16:35. > :16:38.on the big races. The daily Telegraph in the UK describes as the
:16:39. > :16:44.ultimate vanity project is for billionaires. There is an argument
:16:45. > :16:50.that. If that the team from New Zealand, they were as close as you
:16:51. > :16:54.can ever come to winning without winning a trophy, they were based on
:16:55. > :17:01.New Zealand, they relied on government funding and private
:17:02. > :17:10.funding. If a country like New Zealand can put forward a team to be
:17:11. > :17:13.as close as that to winning, if there is proof that it can be done
:17:14. > :17:22.commercially and it is a viable prospect. If you look at the UK,
:17:23. > :17:28.sailing in the UK gets funding around $40 million. It is the same
:17:29. > :17:34.fulsome in athletics, sports with a much wider mass appeal. The figures
:17:35. > :17:44.right should have such a comparator will amount? Sailing is a high
:17:45. > :17:49.participation sport. Maybe it doesn't have the profile of some
:17:50. > :17:53.these sports, but in terms of participation is right up there. We
:17:54. > :18:02.saw in the wake of last summer 's Olympics, a 50% increase in people
:18:03. > :18:08.taking part the sport. But to accept that it has an image problem, that
:18:09. > :18:14.it is seen as a niche pastime? I think it did have, I do not or if it
:18:15. > :18:19.still does. It is changing rapidly. The first man to sail solo and,
:18:20. > :18:22.non`stop around the world, said he could run a yacht in less than it
:18:23. > :18:27.would cost you to watch a foot or team per year. The problem is
:18:28. > :18:33.politicians here yachts and they think Monte Carlo. Please refer to
:18:34. > :18:43.comments by Ed Miliband who talked about a rising tide is left all
:18:44. > :18:51.yachts. `` does not lift. It comes back to a misconception. So the rest
:18:52. > :19:01.problem with the image. `` there is a problem. It used to, but it is not
:19:02. > :19:06.me more. That came from this horrible elitist idea of people
:19:07. > :19:14.owning yachts and being billionaires. It is expected to get
:19:15. > :19:17.into sailing for youngsters. All sailing clubs have some kind of
:19:18. > :19:28.initiative to get local kids into the sport. I was going to ask you.
:19:29. > :19:33.Here you are, in your 30s, the best Olympic sailor of all time, you have
:19:34. > :19:37.been knighted, it is say you can quite happily walked on the street
:19:38. > :19:42.and not get mobbed. You say you are thankful you still have some level
:19:43. > :19:47.of privacy. Should you be saying that? All should you raise your
:19:48. > :19:57.profile to make people notice the sport? It is changing. Unfortunately
:19:58. > :20:01.I was in New York with my girlfriend and we were sought by some
:20:02. > :20:05.photographers. It is very embarrassing to have to say that,
:20:06. > :20:10.but I think the sport is changing. It is an indication. Someone at the
:20:11. > :20:18.sport is having that kind of attention. `` of the top of the
:20:19. > :20:21.sport. It is great for sailing. To be successful you have to work
:20:22. > :20:27.incredibly hard. A tough physical sport. You have experienced terrible
:20:28. > :20:32.backpain through your career. He had some surgery not long ago. There is
:20:33. > :20:40.a price to pay for being a top sportsmen like you. The risk, for
:20:41. > :20:45.any sport. I have had long`term back issues all through my career. It
:20:46. > :20:50.came to a head before the 2012 Olympics. I had to undergo surgery.
:20:51. > :20:57.It was a race against time to get back to full foot this `` fitness.
:20:58. > :21:03.Most sports people go through injuries. It is part of competing at
:21:04. > :21:11.the top levels. You were the first Briton to be aboard a winning teams
:21:12. > :21:18.and 1903. 163 years. The cup is held every three or four years. You want
:21:19. > :21:24.a British team in the America's Cup. Can you get the finance behind your
:21:25. > :21:29.own challenge? The America's Cup started in 1851 in the Isle of
:21:30. > :21:37.Wight. The American boat won the trophy and renamed it the America's
:21:38. > :21:46.Cup. We have not seen it since. Australia won it in 1983 and New
:21:47. > :21:50.Zealand wines in 1995 and 2000. We have a proud maritime heritage. It
:21:51. > :21:57.is a shame that we have never had the cup back. It is time to change
:21:58. > :22:02.that. Will it happen? Will you get the finance? I am working to get the
:22:03. > :22:08.money together. There is a shift in the traditional billionaires race.
:22:09. > :22:13.We expect to see that come down significantly. It is still a huge
:22:14. > :22:17.ask to get the funding together. It will be a mixture of commercial and
:22:18. > :22:20.private funding to run one of these teams and is to be a team of
:22:21. > :22:27.equitable chance of winning. We want to bring the cup back to the UK. Are
:22:28. > :22:32.you positive about this? Do you think it will happen? I am positive.
:22:33. > :22:36.With a small scene we have on working hard broker will of years
:22:37. > :22:44.now. We wouldn't do that unless we believed it was possible. It will be
:22:45. > :22:51.a fantastic challenge. Is a deal imminent? I could not say. We have
:22:52. > :22:55.on working hard, we have some great contact and we will know a lot more
:22:56. > :23:02.in the near future. The British champion of the world champion
:23:03. > :23:06.Formula 1 car has spoken publicly of designing and America's Cup yachts
:23:07. > :23:09.in the future. Would you want him as part of your British challenge? I
:23:10. > :23:18.think any team would jump at the chance to have him involved. I think
:23:19. > :23:23.the red Bull team has had phenomenal success in Formula 1. It is clearly
:23:24. > :23:27.not through chance. They have worked incredibly hard to come up with a
:23:28. > :23:33.team, a design group and an overall team who work hard. Have you
:23:34. > :23:40.approached in? We have spoken a number of occasions. `` on a number
:23:41. > :23:47.of occasions. He is a sailor, he has his own boat. They are not sure he
:23:48. > :23:51.gets much free time, but when he does, he is sailing. We would love
:23:52. > :23:55.to speak to him if he decides to move away from Formula 1. Many teams
:23:56. > :24:03.would love to have him on their team. We'll be CU competing in the
:24:04. > :24:09.Olympics in 2016? Very unlikely. I said last year that it was done for
:24:10. > :24:15.me. To compete in front of a home crowd, that was the ultimate
:24:16. > :24:20.experience. You can not feel any proud than that. My goals are now
:24:21. > :24:25.based mainly around the America's Cup. Thank you to coming on
:24:26. > :24:54.HARDtalk. Good morning. After all the mile and
:24:55. > :24:58.wet weather we have had a month, but we are seeing at the moment comes as
:24:59. > :25:02.a shock. Clear skies have allowed the temperatures to fall away. An
:25:03. > :25:08.unusually cold start today. A bright start with and sunshine, but more
:25:09. > :25:13.wet and windy weather waiting off the Atlantic. It is this thickening
:25:14. > :25:18.cloud that will bring the rain. It has been producing one or two Mac
:25:19. > :25:19.showers. We have sent averages falling away quite sharply in all
:25:20. > :25:21.parts of