What has happened to the Daily Telegraph? Just as the sleepy British public are at last waking up to the fact that they are surrounded by water, thanks to the recent haul of six Olympic sailing medals, from the British team in Beijing, the last great broadsheet has dumped its outstanding sailing correspondent, Tim Jeffrey.

When Ben Ainslie won Britain’s first sailing medal of the Games, a Google search for his name generated 4,340,000 internet stories immediately following the medal ceremony. In 2012 the Olympics will come to London – and Weymouth will be on the global map for holding the sailing events, yet the ‘Torygraph’ as the paper is known in the trade, has apparently ended their many decades of sailing coverage.

Britain always used to be the exception in the world in terms of coverage
given to the sport by the national newspapers. Contrast this with the USA
and even hot sailing nations such as France and New Zealand. Further, The
Telegraph habitually gave more space, more often, than any other paper, so
it’s hard to view this as anything but a huge disappointment for British sailing.
Yachting scribe Tim Jeffery had been the paper’s chief
correspondent, and he is also a regular contributor to Seahorse magazine.