Ellie Aldridge stars as Team GB’s gold medal kitefoiling hero and now ‘can’t wait to not eat’ after beating the odds in Marseille, writes MIKE KEEGAN

She may be 27 but Ellie Aldridge has her salad days firmly ahead of her after ending Britain’s nautical famine.

‘I can’t wait to not eat now!’ the Poole flyer exclaimed before heading over to the podium to listen to her own National Anthem. She was only half joking. 

The pride of Dorset had produced a stunning performance, claiming the back-to-back victories she needed to surge past home favourite Lauriane Nolot and land the inaugural kitefoiling gold.

But this is, currently at least, a sport like no other, in which women use men’s equipment – and in which more weight means more speed. ‘The bigger kite you can hold down, the faster you’ll go,’ a beaming Aldridge, who had to add two stones to her nine stone frame, added.

‘It’s definitely been the hardest part of my journey.’ While there would be no victory feast, Aldridge did at least celebrate with a beer instead of the usual protein shakes. She deserved it. 

Aldridge starred on the southern France water as she topped the podium in the kite final

Poole-based Aldridge celebrated in the water as her success was confirmed in the south of France

Hers was a final opportunity for GB’s crew to taste first place. In a sport which sees speeds of up to 45mph, like skateboarding on water (while connected to a kite and a foil), she glimpsed the slimmest opening and slammed the doors open.

Aldridge’s first race was a last chance saloon, ‘I knew I couldn’t make a single mistake’, she reflected, a wild move from America’s west helped clinch the second. With battle red hot under blazing sun, California’s Daniela Moroz somehow collided with Nolot. 

She picked up a penalty but more importantly sent her rival, from nearby Toulon, tumbling into the water. Game over. In a sport of fractions, the final margin was nine seconds. In this religious city, a procession for our lady. The red, white and blue flags of Britain, and not France, were raised to the sky on the beachside gallery.

Aldridge, from a sailing family, crossed the line and put a hand to her face, almost in astonishment. ‘I just couldn’t believe that it had happened,’ she explained later, drenched from a celebratory soaking in the sea. ‘It was completely like I was on a cloud. The whole thing just feels like a dream. It doesn’t feel real.’

It shouldn’t. It was only 2018 when Aldridge answered a kitefoiling talent search for British Sailing, a sport so new it still has other names (kitesurfing, kiteboarding and Formula Kite). This was its first Olympic outing.

‘I think I just saw it online or something,’ she explained. ‘I did not ever think that this was gonna happen. I didn’t even know if I was going to be any good at it. I just was like, “oh well, it looks really cool”. I could kite surf a bit and I love fast racing and adrenaline sports where everything’s on the line.’ 

That desire, coupled with a willingness to transform her body, turned out to be the perfect ingredients for success.

Earlier in the day, the same sparkling waters of the Cote D’Azur had spelled trouble in paradise for a couple whose wedding is yet to come. Sailing sweethearts John Gimson and Anna Burnet, who get married in Scotland next month, were 700 metres from home with one foot on the mixed multihull podium when something blue arrived and ruined it all.

Aldridge finished ahead of local favourite Lauriane Nolot (left) and Annelous Lammerts of the Netherlands (right)

There was heartbreak for Team GB’s John Gimson and Anna Burnet as they were given a race-ending penalty in the mixed multihull medal race

A blue dinghy and a blue flag. Race over. Three years of preparation killed by a fraction of a second. The pair had heard the whistle and the shouts at the start to denote that someone had crossed the line early. But they did not realise they were the culprits. Had they done so, they could have swung around, crossed the line again and attempted to race for their lives.

By the time the dreaded dinghy arrived the battle and been lost and won. In this most picturesque of settings, disaster. Burnet, 31, had immediately put a hand to her safety helmet. Her fiancé lifted her to her feet and gave her the warmest of embraces. No words were needed.

After returning to shore, Gimson, 41, offered a couple of words. ‘Broken’ he said. ‘Brutal.’ He then repeated the first. ‘We made one mistake and it’s cost us an Olympic medal so you can imagine we’re pretty broken.’

‘It’s devastating,’ Burnet added. ‘It’s a bad dream but we can be proud of what we have done.’ Elsewhere, their Italian rivals cruised to gold. The pair will be guests at their wedding. It is to be hoped they bring a decent gift.