‘Reckless’ Ainslie forced
out of SailGP after crash
‘Broken’ Hamilton’s no-show criticised
16 1GS Saturday December 18 2021 | the times
Rare day of two declarations
Unless you can stay up all night
watching cricket and be
functional the next day, there
comes a point in an Ashes Test, or
at least one played in normal
hours, when the pillow calls and
the nightmares begin. I remember
a cartoon by Nick Newman in
2006 that showed a chap falling
asleep as the radio says “... and
Strauss moves on to seven”
followed by him waking to hear
“... and Strauss moves on to three”
after the inevitable collapse and
follow-on.
It is the same for politics
enthusiasts. A book written about
the 1997 election night was
entitled Were You Still Up for
Portillo? but I suspect most people
drift off after a few dozen results
are in, when the picture of the
night may seem clear but be far
from coloured in.
Expectations can let you down.
On the night of the US
presidential election in 2016, my
wife and I went to bed with it
looking as if Hillary Clinton
would win. I woke at 4am to
watch England start a Test against
India in Rajkot and saw thatDonald Trump had turned it
around. An hour later my wife’s
alarm went off and I heard a howl
of “Oh God! No!” Her look when I
asked if she’d just heard that
Alastair Cook was out would have
curdled milk.
It was a rare treat yesterday for
an Ashes Test to coincide with an
election, especially when the start
of play, being a day-night Test,
dovetailed with the result being
declared.
The Lib Dems had got
significant swing in Oswestry,
Broad and Anderson had found
less of it in Adelaide. Being a nerd,
I then looked up when the nation
had last woken to an election
result and play in the Ashes. That
came in 1986, when Labour held
the Knowsley North by-election,
called after Robert Kilroy-Silk
went off to be on the telly, and
England made 198 for two on day
one in Brisbane.
Who could have predicted then
that 35 years later, England’s man
of the match in that Test would be
a member of the House of Lords
and back in Australia as Boris
Johnson’s trade envoy?Fallon ready to
rock the palace
All eyes should be on the oche
tomorrow evening as the Queen
of the Palace takes on the
Bronzed Adonis, if it isn’t a touch
ridiculous for a 57-year-old man
with a paunch to use that
nickname.
Two years ago Fallon Sherrock
became the first woman to win a
match at the PDC World Darts
Championship, knocking out the
No 11 seed on her way to the third
round. After failing to qualify last
time, Sherrock now makes her
return against the veteran
tungsten-tosser Steve Beaton.
This is the 31st straight year
that Beaton has been to a World
Championships. He won the BDO
version in 1996 but has only once
got past the second round in the
past 16 attempts.
Sherrock is ranked 36 places
lower at No 87 but reached the
final of this season’s Nordic
Masters and the quarter-finals of
the Grand Slam of Darts and
William Hill, the sponsor, makes
her the odds-on favourite.
She’s 200-1 for the title, by the
way, if you believe in Christmas
miracles.THETAILENDER
Patrick Kidd
Race to clean
up Seine is on
Swimming in the Seine has been
illegal since 1923, the year before
Paris last hosted the Olympics.
Since then it has been far too
polluted. That may be about to
change. The organisers of the
2024 Games, which return to the
French capital, announced this
week that the opening ceremony
will feature a 160-boat flotilla
down the Seine, allowing 600,000
spectators to watch from the
banks.
The next plan, and time may be
running out to get it clean
enough, is for some swimming
events to be held in the river. This
last happened when Paris hosted
the 1900 Olympics, where as well
as races between 200 and 1,000
metres there was an underwater
race (points awarded for time and
distance) and an obstacle race in
which entrants had to clamber
over a pole, then over a wall of
boats and finally swim under
another row. Frederick Lane
completed the 200m course in
2min 38sec: 10sec slower than his
world record for the distance
unencumbered. Something for
Adam Peaty to try next?PIC OF THE WEEK
Despite concerns that
the World Darts
Championship could
be a super-spreader
event, 3,000 fans
were allowed into
Alexandra Palace for
the opening day if
they had Covid
passes. The usual
(fancy) dress code was
observed with Smurfs,
Oompa Loompas and,
here, the Grinch all
lapping up the action.When boats pile into each other in
SailGP — international sailing’s
answer to Formula One — the out-
come can be dramatic, but Sir Ben Ain-
slie took things to a new level yesterday
by causing a crash that could have
resulted in serious injury to his rivals.
The 44-year-old British skipper was
approaching the start of race three at
the SailGP grand prix on Sydney
Harbour, travelling at speed towards
the front of the eight-strong fleet.
However, with 20 seconds to go to the
start, he and his crew on their super-
fast F50 catamaran failed to see the
Japanese boat closing on them.
Although the Japanese crew, skip-
pered by Australian sailor Nathan Out-
teridge, had right of way, there was no
time to avoid them and the British boat
reared up into the air — completely out
of control — and then came crashing
down on top of Outteridge’s catamaran.
The impact tore off the starboard
bow of the Japanese yacht and occurred
at a point just a few feet ahead of where
the most forward of Outteridge’s crew
were standing. That was a huge relief
for all concerned; had the point of con-
tact been just a little further back then
the outcome would have been far moreserious for the Japanese boat’s sailors.
Outteridge, 35, one of the world’s top
foiling racing yachtsmen, was furious.
On the helm mike he could be heard
shouting in amazement at what had
happened. “You’ve got to be kidding
me,” he said, and then minutes later he
made no attempt to hold back his
criticism of Ainslie in an interview
conducted by the race organisers.
“We saw Ben above us and get com-
pletely out of control and the whole hull
landed on top of us,” he said. “We’re still
shocked that no one got squashed.
We’ve got no bow left — the boat is
completely damaged. [It was] just reck-
less sailing and it really ended our day.”
Ainslie seemed slightly stunned by
what had happened as it quickly
became clear that neither he nor
Hannah Diamond on tactics at the
back of the British boat had seen their
Japanese rivals. Instead they had been
focusing on trying to keep ahead of
Jimmy Spithill’s American crew.
“We just didn’t see the other boat,”
Ainslie admitted. “We were focused on
the Americans and were a little bit early
for the start. The first time I was aware
of Japan was when someone said, ‘Ah...
you’ve got the other boat?’ I had no idea
they were there. That’s certainly our
mistake and I hope all the guys on the
Japan boat are OK and yeah, it’s frus-
trating for both teams.”The crash is a hammer blow for
Outteridge’s prospects in Sydney. It is
also a disaster for Ainslie, who had been
looking to climb up the overall rankings
at the penultimate event in the SailGP
calendar, to give his team a chance of
winning the championship that carries
with it a jackpot of $1 million (about
£750,000).
He and his crew had started well in
Sydney, with a win in the first race and
a fourth place in race two, but they have
now withdrawn from the grand prix
and with that their challenge for season
honours is all but over.
Racing resumes on Sunday but it is
going to be a big challenge for the
Japanese team to be ready and they
may take up Ainslie’s offer of use of the
British boat for the final races in Syd-
ney. Conditions are going to be boister-
ous with a full-on “black nor’easter”
gusting to over 20 knots, blowing across
Sydney Harbour — perfect for more
drama in a fleet featuring some of the
fastest multihulls in world sailing.
In better news for British sailing,
Emily Mueller, from Surrey, and Flor-
ence Brellisford, from Essex, were con-
firmed as winners of the Youth Sailing
World Championships in Oman in the
29er skiff class. The 18-year-olds fin-
ished six points ahead of the American
pairing of Charlie Leigh and Sophie
Fisher in second place.Ainslie took
the blame after
his boat landed
on a Japanese
rival, insetLewis Hamilton may be punished for
failing to attend the FIA prize-giving
ceremony after its new president said
there would be “no forgiveness” if he
was found to have broken the rules.
Mohammed ben Sulayem was
elected as the first non-European
leader of motorsport’s governing body
yesterday — a day after the seven-
times world champion shunned the
FIA gala, which the sport’s regulations
state must be attended by the top three
finishers in the drivers’ championship.
Hamilton, 36, has not spoken public-
ly since the season finale in Abu Dhabi
last weekend, in which he was contro-
versially beaten to the world champi-onship by Max Verstappen. He spent
yesterday in Brackley, Northampton-
shire, at Mercedes’ headquarters, with
his team-mate Valtteri Bottas and team
principal Toto Wolff to celebrate their
eighth successive constructors’ title.
Sulayem said: “Rules are rules, so we
are going to look into the side where the
technical rules are there to be em-
ployed. Was he in breach? I have to look
into it. I know that Lewis is really sad
and one word I would say is he’s broken.
But we have to look if there was any
breach. I cannot [say for now]. It’s just a
few hours I’ve been a president, and I’ve
just started giving answers without
going back to the facts.” If Hamilton is
found to have broken the rules, any
penalty is likely to be financial.
Sulayem replaces Jean Todt, who
stood down after three terms, after
beating the British lawyer GrahamStoker, who had been Todt’s deputy
president since 2009, in a vote in Paris.
The 60-year-old enjoyed a lengthy
career as a rally driver, winning the FIA
Middle East Rally Championship on 14
occasions. He was the first Arab to be
elected to the FIA’s World Motor Sport
Council, and previously served as vice-
president with the FIA.
Sulayem’s most pressing task will be
to oversee the fallout from Abu Dhabi,
where a change to the safety-car proce-
dures essentially meant that Hamilton,
was denied victory and instead Red
Bull’s Verstappen won his maiden
championship. Questions have been
asked about whether Michael Masi, the
FIA race director, is the right person for
the job. On Wednesday the FIA an-
nounced an investigation into the Abu
Dhabi events as the issue is “tarnishing
the image of the championship”.Formula One
Rebecca Clancy
Motor Racing CorrespondentSailing
Ed GormanCAMERON SPENCER/GETTY IMAGES