Frenchman sees rugby revenge in gold medal loss

Fairfax Media/Reuters

COMPO CLAIM: New Zealand's Tom Ashley (left) celebrates a gold medal victory over France while Aaron Mauger's misery is obvious after the All Blacks lost their rugby World Cup quarterfinal to France.

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The Frenchman beaten to Beijing Olympic gold by New Zealand boardsailor Tom Ashley has cheekily suggested it was revenge for last year's Rugby World Cup ambush.

Silver medallist Bontemps finished just one point behind Ashley on the overall standings after leading the Kiwi by a similar single point margin going into the gold medal race.

In the double-points, cut-throat finale, whoever finished in front between the pair was going to win gold and Ashley crossed the line in third place, just ahead of fast-closing Frenchman.

Bontemps, who hails from a coastal town not far from the rugby bastion of Nantes, is a mad-keen rugby fan and said afterwards that Ashley's victory should be compensation for the All Blacks loss to France in the World Cup quarterfinal in Cardiff last October.

"For sure that's the case," he said with smile before revealing he'd spoken to former French rugby coach turned sports minister Bernard Laporte on the eve of the final. In this instance Laporte couldn't conjure a victory for France.

Ashley was aided to victory when Bontemps lost valuable time by falling off his board as he rounded the first mark. He said the fall was caused by having to check the judges' board to see if had incurred a penalty turn for jumping the start.

"I thought I was OCS [over the line at the start] so when I arrived at the top mark I checked the board to see if I was over. I just turned my head to look and lost my balance."

That mistake allowed Ashley to dash away and the "nerve-wracked" Aucklander held on to his margin of safety to win New Zealand's third gold medal of these games.

Ashley was also helped by an on-water jury ruling after Briton Nick Dempsey, his other main rival for gold, lodged a protest about a very tight cross-over where Ashley tacked just in front of the Englishman on the first beat.

"Nick shouted a little bit and made it look closer than it was but it wasn't an issue. He had a bit of nerves and made a bigger deal of it than it should have been and I figured that stage he was broken and struggling a little bit," Ashley said.

Ashley, who is a popular character on the windsurfing circuit, is good friends with Bontemps, Dempsey and Israel's Shahar Zubari who took bronze at Dempsey's expense in a tight finish and while Ashley savoured his own victory he spared a thought for the disconsolate Dempsey, realising that could equally have been him.

"I saw Nick afterwards and just felt really sorry for him. It's pretty tough when something like that comes down one race."

Bontemps praised Ashley as a worthy winner.

"Tom was very good in this regatta," Bontemps said. "He's a friend, I've known him for a long time and he's a very good sailor with lots of experience. He's had an amazing year."

Ashley, who described himself as a "competitor" rather than a sailor, says he will now probably take a break from the sport and will consider studying law after essentially mentally exhausting himself in this campaign.

"I do love what I do. But I'd really like to go to university at some stage and my nature is to be all or nothing with the things I do, so if I did that I'd want to do it 100 per cent as well. So we'll see. The first thing I want to do is have a really good holiday and take a couple of months to enjoy this.

"I won't say I've lived like a monk for the last little while but I've been really focused and I need to take some time off and think about life."

On the podium, Ashley expected some tears to flow but he said he "held himself together" for the medal ceremony which was probably due to the fact he'd all but emptied his emotional vault in the lead-up to the finale.

"I was a little bit emotional but not as much as I expected. I've been on verge of tears for the last 24 hours but the relief of winning killed a bit of that.

All through last night and this morning I was pretty nervous. It was a pretty stressful day and a stressful race."

Part of his stress was due to the fact he threw away a handy lead by making a bad tactical error in the final fleet race on Tuesday and his biggest fear was coming away with "nothing" after having the gold all but locked away at one stage.

Ashley's next major mission is his January wedding to his fiancee Mariana, who was at home in Brazil watching in the early hours of the morning as her future husband held his nerve in a cliffhanger. They will marry in her native Brazil before settling in New Zealand.

- © Fairfax NZ News