Olympic triple gold medallist Ben Ainslie might not be able to compete at London 2012.
The 31-year-old, who is the most successful British sailor ever, said he could not commit to the Games yet, because they might clash with the America's Cup.
Ainslie has failed in previous attempts to win the Cup, which is seen as sailing's blue ri
band event, and Britain has never had a winning team.
He said: "The America's Cup is the biggest goal left for me now.
"It is pretty hard to miss out on the opportunity to be racing on your home waters in 2012.
"A lot is going to happen between now and then, it is four years away, so we are looking forward to finding out where and when the next America's Cup is."
Whether or not he is competing, Ainslie hopes that the focus stays on sport rather than politics in the lead up to 2012.
"I think certainly this Olympics has been used politically.
"I don't think that's the case in the UK yet but we might see some of that happening.
"It will be a shame if it does get hijacked for political purposes because it is a great sporting spectacle," he said.
The Beijing Games were the best yet for Ainslie, who said his third Olympic gold was the high point of his career.
"The realisation that you have three gold medals in a row is really cool. It takes a while to sink in. As an athlete you know you've got one shot every four years, if you're lucky enough to get more than one shot, and you've really got to make it count, and that's why you get such a huge sense of relief when the job is done."
Ainslie sailed an Extreme 40, one of the fastest boats in the world, under London's Tower Bridge yesterday in celebration of his success.
His hat-trick of golds, which he won at consecutive Games, has drawn praise from International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge, who compared his feat to the record-breaking US swimmer Michael Phelps.
Ainslie said: "That was pretty cool.
"There's been a lot of debate about winning a certain amount of medals.
"All I can do is win one medal (at each Games). Chris Hoy can only win three and he did and that's an outstanding achievement."
He named Lewis Hamilton, Tiger Woods and Roger Federer as his other sporting heroes.
The full article contains 417 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
