After collecting his knighthood from Princess Anne at Buckingham
Palace, the newly knighted Sir Ben Ainslie, CBE, said it was ‘the
proudest day of my life’.

Ben’s knighthood marks the culmination of more than 20 years dedicated
to the Olympics and the pursuit of gold.

At London 2012 after securing
his fourth gold medal Sir Ben Ainslie became the most successful Olympic
sailor of all time, with four golds and one silver in total from five
Olympic Games.

Speaking outside the Palace after the ceremony Sir Ben said: ‘It’s
been a great day, there were lots of familiar faces here today including
Lord Coe, Katherine Grainger and David Weir so it was great to cacth up
with some old friends and also very proud to see all the people there
who have done some amazing things.

‘For me, it is probably the proudest moment of my life and its even
more special to be able to share it with my family and friends.

‘It’s a
huge honour and a day to remember, but life moves on to the future and
the next project and challenge.

‘For me it’s the America’s Cup, it
started in Britain in 1851 and yet we have’t won it and that’s something
I feel is missing from our maritime history so it would be great if we
can achieve that. We have a lot of great sailors in the UK so I hope
that we can win the Cup, that’s the next challenge.’

Sir Ben’s visit to the UK is just a pit stop, he will now head back out
to San Francisco to continue his America’s Cup training.

He will return
to Europe in April to compete in the next America’s Cup World Series
event, it will be the final event of the 2012/13 series and his team
J.P.Morgan BAR will be looking to clinch that elusive event victory,
racing starts in Naples on Thursday 18 April.