OLYMPIC sailing great Ben Ainslie hopes fellow Maxonians will help him make waves at Sunday’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards.

Despite being at long odds of 80-1 to be crowned the UK’s elite athlete as the Express went to press, the modest 6ft sailor and triple gold medallist said it would be "awesome" if he "a-mast" votes among his fellow Silk Towners.

Ben, 31, now based down south and comfortably Britain’s greatest ever sailing Olympian, said: "It will be great to be there on the evening and awesome if people of Macclesfield can vote for me! It’s been my best year ever so far and I’m honoured to have been nominated."

First Silk citizen, Mayor of Macclesfield Thelma Jackson, is certainly flying the flag for Ben – calling on Maxonians to get dialling in a bid to put Macclesfield on the sporting map.

"I have my fingers crossed – it’s great that he has been nominated and hopefully, with some help from us, he can pull it off," she said.

Colin Barrie, commodore of Redesmere Sailing Club, said: "We’re encouraging all our members to vote for Ben. For a Macclesfield-born lad to be in line for the top sport award is great for Macclesfield and sailing as a sport."

Nine other high achieving athletes will sit nervously alongside Ben at the Liverpool Echo Arena on Sunday (December 14) while the public ring through their top personality.

Favourites for the title are F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, and swimmer Rebecca Adlington.

But Ben’s dad, Roddy Ainslie, 67, who lives in Cornwall, said: "He’s the first person ever to be crowned world sailor of the year three times. We’ll be watching it from home hoping everyone in Macclesfield votes for Ben."

The former Terra Nova School pupil is himself remaining realistic.

"With the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Chris Hoy in the running, it will be tough going," he admitted. "Different sports have different characteristics and I suppose you can only do what you can. I can only win one medal at each Olympics and have managed to do that, so we will see what happens."

This year, Olympic president Jacques Rogge said that Ben’s achievements should be comparable to sprinter Usain Bolt’s or Chris Hoy’s. The event takes place on Sunday, December 14, from 7pm on BBC One.

A spokesman for Macclesfield Borough Council said: "We’re delighted at Ben’s shortlisting for Sport Personality of the Year. MBC is considering a form of recognition for Ben and the other successful Olympians and Paralympians from the borough."

See the Macclesfield Express sports page for further details.