THE Great Britain Olympic sailing team remain on course for their first three medals of the Games on Saturday and all three could be gold after another superb day for Ben Ainslie in the Finns, Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield in 470s and Shirley Robertson, Sarah Ayton and Sarah Webb in Ynglings.

As those classes head for the final three races of their regattas, the Britain team have strong medal credentials in at least three other disciplines — the 49ers, through Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks, who are second after four races, and in Stars and Tornado catamarans, which do not start racing until the weekend.

Ainslie has been on a mission all week to pull back from his poor start and yesterday, another scorcher on the Saronic Gulf in light sea breezes, he showed his temperament for the big occasion, producing fine performances to finish second in race seven and third in race eight.

It was enough to extend his overall lead over Rafael Trujillo, of Spain, from one to eight points. With Mateusz Kusnierewicz, of Poland, a long way back in third place after a botched start in race seven, it looks as if the battle for gold will be between Ainslie and Trujillo. The last time the two went head to head, at the World Championships in Cadiz last year, Ainslie trounced him in the last race.

For three days, Britain’s top dinghy racer has kept his counsel, but Ainslie broke his silence last night and sounded relieved to be back at the top and on course for his second Olympic gold and his third medal altogether. Asked if he was aware of his growing fame at home, he said that he had barely given that aspect of the past extraordinary five days any thought. “I’ve just been so focused on trying to get back into the event, I haven’t really been paying attention to anything outside,” he said. “It’s obviously a shame that everything started off so badly.

“It’s really hard. You’ve got to be careful when you can’t afford another bad race. But at the same time you’ve still got to be there, pushing and getting a good start and going the right way and taking the places —it’s a really fine line between pushing too hard and doing enough to get a good result”

In the 470s, Rogers and Glanfield sailed the conditions — steadier yesterday than on Tuesday — with confidence and with the right balance between going for the win and protecting their lead. They emerged happy with a second place in race seven and a third in race eight, which extended their advantage over Paul Foerster and Kevin Burnham, of the United States, from one point to six. With the two crews well ahead of the remainder of the fleet, the gold and the silver look to be between them.

“We got good starts in both races, which put us in control,” Glanfield said. “We didn’t push out and win both races — we sailed quite conservatively to make sure we finished in the top five.”

Rogers, the helmsman, eyeing the remaining three heats, said: “One problem we have is not to get too conservative. We still need to go out and sail our best and push as far as we normally would.”

In the Ynglings, everything seems to be clicking into place for Robertson, Ayton and Webb. They were fourth in race seven and sixth in race eight, their worst result to date, and lead the class by seven points from the crew from Denmark, led by Dorte Jensen. In race seven, Britain had an indifferent start and reached the first mark in twelfth place, but they took a brave decision to head off almost on their own on the run and made up eight places. In race eight, they recovered well after hitting the windward mark and having to take a penalty turn.

“They were the sort of conditions where you just had to be brave and just smash a corner and, you know, when you win a regatta, that’s quite a tough thing to do,” Ayton, the bowman, said. “Now it’s almost between us and Dorte, it’s going to start heating up and we are going to be almost match racing.”