Britain's haul at the end of the Rolex Miami Olympics Classes Regatta totalled at four gold, five silver, and five bronze medals across nine of the 12 events they contested, with Britons claiming a clean sweep of the podium spots in both the Finn and 49er classes.

Scott led the Finn regatta from start to finish, although Ainslie did his utmost to narrow the gap over his teammate by winning the double-points scoring medal race today.

Scott finished fifth to give him overall victory by a point, with silver going to Ainslie, and bronze to fellow Briton Andrew Mills.

"Today's medal race was pretty tricky," Scott admitted.

"I had the tack of trying to go after Andrew and Ben just to kind of ruffle them a bit, and I managed to give Ben a penalty turn with about 20 seconds to go.

"Unfortunately that penalty turn forced him out to the right which was the favoured end and he ended up going round first or second and won the race which kind of made things a bit difficult for me.

"But holding on to fifth was what I needed to do and that's what I did, so I'm massively happy."

John Pink and Rick Peacock had already assured gold in the 49er event even before the final medal race started, heading into the day with an unassailable 23 point lead.

But they were determined not to take their foot off the gas, finishing third in the final race which was won by fellow Britons Paul Brotherton and Mark Asquith, who take silver.

"We still went out and tried to do the medal race as well as we could," Pink said.

"We quite enjoyed the race, it was pretty exciting – it got quite shifty and gusty, but we thought like most medal races it's good to go and try and attack them because if you try and defend it never really works out for you.

"We thought we'd attack it and use as a bit of practice and we did quite well! "We picked up third in the medal race so we're pretty happy.

"It's good to start the year by winning the first event.

"We're looking forward to the rest of the season and trying to keep up the good work."

Dave Evans and Ed Powys took bronze to complete the clean sweep of the medal spots.

There was a shake up in the 470 Men's event, with series leaders Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell having to settle for bronze after a disappointing medal race in which they finished tenth.

Teammates and two-time world champions Nic Asher and Elliot Willis took gold for Britain with the help of a third place in the final race.

"It's our first World Cup of the year, so it's great to come away with gold and we're both really happy with that," said Willis.

"We've sailed well all week and are looking forward to the rest of the year really and just staying consistent and staying healthy.

Patience said: "I can't lie and say that we're overly happy about losing gold.

"It's a disappointment, but it's still the first World Cup of the year, we sailed an outstanding series leading up to the medal race so we don't doubt ourselves one bit."



There was medal success also in the women's 470 event, where Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes (pictured) took silver to claim their first podium spot together – and 21-year-old Hughes's first at a senior event.

The duo missed out on gold by just one point to the French team of Ingrid Petitjean and Nadege Douroux.

"It's certainly been our goal this year to make our way onto the podium," said Clark.

"It's been knocking on the door for a few regattas now and to finally put a really good series together and then convert it in the medal race means a lot to us."

Last year was a difficult season for the pair with illness to Clark and injury to Hughes disrupting the key winter training period, so Hughes is pleased that their preparations towards London 2012 selection are back on track.

"It was quite hard last year – expecting things and having not put been able to put the training in place made it quite hard to put it all into practice," she said.

"But we've had a good few months under our belt now, we're feeling good and looking forward to a few more months of training before the European season and the key events this summer kick in."

Britain took silver in both the men's and women's RS:X windsurfing events.

Bryony Shaw finished fourth in the medal race to narrow the gap on Spanish gold medallist Marina Alabau, while Nick Dempsey could nott quite overcome Dorien van Rijsselberge in the men's event, finishing fourth to the Dutchman's fifth in the final race to see him finish two points behind in second overall.

The Laser finale promised to be a tight battle for the medal spots, and it did not disappoint.

In incredibly shifty conditions, Olympic champion Paul Goodison ultimately had to settle for bronze behind Swede Rasmus Myrgren and Argentinian Julio Alsogaray, with teammate Nick Thompson in fourth, while Lucy Macgregor, Mary Rook and Kate Macgregor also finished fourth in the women's match racing event, losing 2-1 to USA's Sally Barkow.

Pictures: Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR

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