|
Sail-World.com : Tom Ashley breaks NZ Gold Medal drought
Tom Ashley breaks NZ Gold Medal drought
|
Yesterday on Fushan Bay, Tom Ashley won the Gold medal in the RS:X Mens windsurfing event, the first Gold Medal New Zealand has won since Barbara Kendall’s in 1992 in Barcelona.
That’s a long time between drinks.
Yesterday was a pressure race, by any measure with the seabreeze blowing along the coast of Fushan Bay on which Qingdao city is located. Initially the wind was up to a roaring 10 knots, but faded during the Womens Final to around 5-6kts, meaning that the wind-wackers lived up to their moniker.
Ashley generally performs well in a breeze, as we saw in the 2008 Worlds at Takapuna where he looked to be well in his comfort zone, and his height is very advantageous.
So it was with a degree of confidence that many had in Ashley’s ability to at least improve on his third placing overnight.
Ashley later confessed that he had a reasonably uneasy night, however all that was shed 30 seconds before the start, when the rest of the Medal race fleet opted for the pin end of the start line and Ashley performed a quick 270 turn under the Committee Boat and was able to make a port tack start, free of the pack and gain enough to be ahead at the first cross.
While Ashley later down played the significance of this move, cleared it had a psychological effect on his nearest rivals who had the option of either ducking his stern or tacking underneath. Either was it was signal to them that they were behind, their overnight points advantage had evaporated, and they were now the ones in catch-up mode.
For reasons that are not entirely clear the Race Committee had chosen to set a course that was just two legs – an upwind and downwind leg, lasting just 19minutes and 4 seconds.
To compound the situation the downwind leg was set with a chicane in it, meaning that the competitors were forced to sail a “Z” course in the lower third of the leg – further reducing passing opportunities.
The reality of the situation was that once you had missed getting the advantage at the first cross, there was about eight to ten minutes left to catch up, or the Gold Medal was gone.
Later Ashley told Sail-World that he felt the critical point occurred further up the leg where “two thirds of the way up I got a really good lane with some good waves as well, and at then end of that I didn’t have too much left to do on port. I saw a couple of other guys get pretty stuck, and a couple of them passed behind me, and that was probably the turning point in the race.”
Either way the first of the top three to round the windward mark probably had the Gold Medal, unless your opponent was able to pump their way past as Jian Yin (CHN) had done to take the Gold Medal in the Womens RS:X final.
For the few Kiwis on the water watching it was heart in the mouth stuff, as we could see the wider course, wind and other competitors that don’t come through on the TV screen.
The body language on the various media boats was also telling as the British fell suddenly quiet as their Nick Dempsey was back in the pack.
Ashley’s other rival, Julien Bontemps (FRA) dropped out of the race for Gold when he fell off his board around the top mark, leaving Ashley to sail the course and defend from the front.
Like a football game, when you are in front in the dying stages, it is just a matter of holding your position and winding down the clock.
So it was with Ashley, as the race progressed, his medal chances improved markedly, until they became a certainty at the finish line.
Initially there seemed to be some confusion in the media ranks anyway as to who had won the Gold medal.
The Israelis were going off over the performance of Shahar Zubari, who had finished second, to take the bronze medal. He jumped off his boar and swam to a nearby coach boat and started making mobile phone calls while still in the water. The media descended on his and the celebrations from a sailor who had never won a major regatta, but had popped up to take the Bronze medal at an Olympic Games.
Then the media boats took off after Ashley who was making his way over to coach Grant Beck, who has been instrumental in so many of New Zealand’s Olympic windsurfing medals over the past 24 years.
Ashley’s first move was to spend a few minutes with Beck in recovery and jubilation, and then sail over the Race Committee boat and thank them for their efforts over the week.
That done it was a few passes and poses for the media and it was back to the dock, and more media interviews, photos and congratulations from team members.
About and hour or so later Ashley was changed and into the medal ceremony. He still seemed to be in the same daze that he was in immediately after the race, as the enormity of the race sank in.
Standing with his eyes closed for part of the flag raining ceremony, hand on heart as the NZ anthem was played, one can only imagine his thoughts. However at the end of the flag raising ceremony the world, and the self-imposed pressure seemed to lift from his shoulders and he relaxed and savoured the moment.
The media conference was a more light hearted affair, the Chinese requirement for every question and answer to be translated into Chinese and English caused much mirth and grins amongst the three medallists who all described them selves as good friends.
At one point Ashley comments that his answer to a question sounded much better in Chinese than it had in English!
We'll have a full post-race interview with Tom Ashley in Sail-World.com tomorrow.
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World
Click on the FB Like link to post this story to your FB wall
http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=48046
2:32 AM Thu 21 Aug 2008 GMT
Click here for printer friendly version
Click here to send us feedback or comments about this story.
Related News Stories:
MORE STORIES ...
|
|
|
Our Advertisers are committed to our sport, please support them!
This site and its contents are © Copyright TetraMedia Pty. Ltd and/or the original author, photographer etc. All Rights Reserved.
Photographs are copyright by law. If you wish to use or buy a photograph you must contact the photographer directly (there is a hyperlink in most cases to their website, or do a Google search.) with your request.
Please do not contact Sail-World.com as we cannot give permission for use of other photographer’s images.
Only if the photographer named on the image is Sail-world.com, Powerboat-world.com or Marinebusiness-world.com
Contact us
.
or complete our
feedback form
Contact us
.
View our Privacy Policy.
[ Go Home]
[ Banner Advertising Specification]
[Bot Archive ]
Customised news feeds -Marine Industry companies, Clubs and Associations have their own customised version of our Sail-World news feed on their website.
Look_here_to_see_examples
|
| | |
