'We've nothing to lose - it's the opportunity of a lifetime'

Four-time Olympic champion is relishing the biggest challenge of his career: toppling New Zealand to win Britain's first America's Cup

- Donald McRae

'Look, we're the underdogs in this, without a shadow of doubt," Ben Ainslie says calmly as he prepares for the greatest sporting challenge of his life against Team New Zealand in the America's Cup, which begins on Saturday in Barcelona.

"They're the clear favourites but that's a good thing. We've got pretty much everything to gain and nothing to lose. We've got the opportunity of a lifetime, so we're really going to go for it." Ainslie won gold medals in sailing at four successive Olympic Games but even those achievements would be surpassed if he could inspire a first British victory in the 173-year history of one of the world's oldest surviving sporting competition. It is 60 years since a British boat was even in a position to race for the America's Cup, which began on the waters around the Isle of Wight in 1851, and Ainslie and his Ineos Britannia team have just come through a bruising qualifying series.

They have been racing competitively since August, as a round-robin series set up two knockout stages in which they outstripped their Swiss challengers before they were locked in a relentless struggle against an outstanding Italian boat, Luna Rossa, led by the grizzled Australian Jimmy Spithill. Day after day of gruelling skirmishes left them tied at 4-4 before, finally, Ainslie and his co-helmsman Dylan Fletcher found a way to crack open a decisive lead. Winning consecutive victories for the first time last Wednesday gave them the momentum they needed. Two days later their 7-4 series win meant that they clinched the Louis Vuitton Cup and the right to challenge Team New Zealand, the America's Cup defending champions.