They do, the british bikes have been available for two years; no-one has even enquired in that time.

The French accuse our cyclists of cheating - because they are French!

Nathan hits back

After yesterday’s story about the Australian 49er being different to everyone else’s it was only right to give Nathan Outteridge a right of reply. Here’s what he told me today:

“Ours is a Bethwaite boat, the other guys have got Ovingtons or Mackays. A lot of other guys said they never had the chance to buy one of those boats, but Julian [Bethwaite] built 10 of them and no one decided to buy, so people started complaining about it. It's a bit frustrating that people have talked about it like that, but we've sailed an Ovington, a Mackay and a Bethwaite and won a Worlds in all three. It makes no difference. The last Worlds was in a Bethwaite, the Worlds in Garda in an Ovington and sailed all through 2010 in a Mackay. The Worlds I won with Ben [Austin, in 2008] was in a Mackay.

“The boats are one-design but there are small differences and you can get any boat from any supplier and I'm sure you'll find differences. It’s a matter of spending the time over a four year period working out what's the right equipment to use for the weather. The hull is most important when it's windy, and our best day here was in the lightest weather and our worst day was in the windiest weather, so I don't think it's the equipment that's doing it for us.

“It’s been going on for about a year, people going on about our equipment. If someone had an issue about it they needed to come and talk to us about it, rather than just going behind our back. It's been quite frustrating. We had four boats here, in case we had problems. And we were ready to say, 'you tell us which of these four to use, so long as we can tell you which of your boats you can use.' We've got a few Bethwaites here and Mackays as well, and it was a case of, 'I don't care which boat we're going to sail because it's not going to make a difference.’”

Danish skipper Allan Norregaard said he didn’t have a problem with the Aussies. “They sailed really well. It wouldn’t have mattered which boat they used. They deserve that gold medal. But this is a problem for the class. We have to work hard to keep the 49er strictly one-design in the future.”