Dempsey's 'dream' of Olympic win

Nick Dempsey competes in the RS:X windsurf class race during Beijing 2008

Olympic success in Dorset during the 2012 Olympics is "a dream", says world champion windsurfer Nick Dempsey.

He said: "2012 has been in the back of my mind ever since the UK won the bid."

Dempsey lives in Wyke Regis, close to the Weymouth and Portland Sailing Academy, where the Olympic sailing events will be held in 2012.

He hopes competing at his 'home' venue and training on the actual race course will give him an advantage over other racers.

He said: "I've sailed there nearly every day for the last 10 years. I know the way the wind works, the way of the current, the way the sea state is.

"You can basically optimise your sailing for all those things, and you're training on the race course itself, at an Olympic venue."

In September he won the 2009 RS:X World Windsurfing Championship at the same venue, which he described as "awesome".

Nick described his disappointment at Beijing as 'heartbreaking'

'Heartbreaking' Beijing

The prize followed a disappointing Beijing Olympics for Dempsey, where he went from a position of joint first during the race, to finishing fourth in the RS:X windsurfing event.

At the time he told BBC Sport it was "heartbreaking".

Dempsey's Olympic career began as part of Team GB in Sydney 2000, and he won his first Olympic medal, a bronze, at Athens in 2004.

Despite his personal disappointment at Beijing, Team GB did well at the 2008 Games, winning 47 medals, including 14 gold.

Finishing fourth place overall, it was the UK's best Olympic performance for 100 years.

High expectations

The London 2012 Games are the first Olympics to be held in Britain since 1948 and expectations of a medal bonanza for our home athletes are high.

But Dempsey doesn't feel any additional pressure at being part of the 'host' team.

He said: "We put enough pressure on ourselves. We want to win more than anything and we have high expectations on ourselves.

"With the team that competes for the UK in 2012, everyone will be capable of winning a medal of some colour, so probably half the team will get one and half won't.

"But everyone will be at the top of the game."

In pictures: Blown Away - Britain's top sailors photographed in the waters off Portland

"Something to remember"

Dempsey, 29, who lives with wife and fellow Olympic medalist Sarah Ayton was born in Norfolk but has made Weymouth his home over the last decade.

He said: "As someone who lives in Weymouth, when I moved here it was a sleepy little town, and it still is in some respects.

"But when something happens to the town you now call home and a town you have grown to love, [the Olympics is] going to have a massive effect on the people who live here."

"Having been to three Olympic Games and seen how it transforms those cities, if we even get a little bit of that here then everyone is going to get something to remember."