(UPDATES with quotes)
British sailor Ben Ainslie continued his remarkable run of winning gold at every Olympics since 2000 with victory in the Finn class Sunday.
Ainslie finished ninth, one place ahead of his Danish rival Jonas Hogh-Christiansen, in the medal race to take gold.
The two had battled throughout the 11 races off the coast of Weymouth and Ainslie roared and punched the air in his boat at the finish as Hogh-Christiansen curled up in his.
"The race was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences in my life. My tactics were to try making life difficult for Jonas," Ainslie said.
France’s Jonathan Lobert won the medal race and took bronze, edging out Jan-Pieter Postma of the Netherlands.
Ainslie, 35, won gold in the Finn in Beijing in 2008 and Athens in 2004, as well as in the Laser class in Sydney in 2000 and silver in the Laser in Atlanta in 1996.
He spoke of the pressure he felt from the medal-hungry British public.
"It is always hard when people say you are a dead cert to win; you try to tell them that is not the case, but they don't listen," he said.
If Ainslie competes at the next Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, he has the chance to equal legendary British rower Steve Redgrave's record of winning gold at five successive Olympics, but he said he was reluctant to commit to that.
"It can never get any better than this and I'm not sure I would want to go through it again," he said.
