One medal means success for NZ yachties

Reuters

SINGLE SUCCESS: Two yachting medals would have been ideal, but Tom Ashley's solitary gold still moved New Zealand team management to declare their Olympic regatta a success.

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Two yachting medals would have been ideal, but Tom Ashley's solitary gold still moved New Zealand team management to declare their Olympic regatta a success.

New Zealand's involvement ended with a disappointing ninth placing for Star pair Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams as the regatta wrapped up in stormy weather on Fushan Bay yesterday.

It left New Zealand with one medal from the seven classes they contested, still an improvement on Athens where they didn't climb any podium for the first time since 1976.

There were two medals in Sydney four years earlier, one in Atlanta in 1996 and a best-ever four in Barcelona in 1992 where boardsailor Barbara Kendall won New Zealand's previous gold.

Team manager Russell Green, who was hired to manage this campaign along with coach and former Olympic medallist Rod Davis, was upbeat.

"I think it's been a success, certainly the programme and the preparation was a step up from Athens, a lot better," he said.

"Rod Davis and Yachting New Zealand (YNZ) concentrated on classes they could do well in, as opposed to trying to compete in every class against big money programmes like Australia or Britain or Italy.

"There's some disappointment that we didn't get two medals, but overall, at a venue that's been pretty variable, it's a good result."

Andrew Murdoch remained New Zealand's hard-luck story in the Laser class, finishing fifth, six points off the bronze medal position.

At his first Olympics, the Kerikeri sailor led the fleet after day one then won the final two races, including the medal race which counted for double points.

But in between times he had some horror placings, and was unlucky to have the scheduled 10th race cancelled due to the conditions when he was making a late charge.

"Andrew was certainly unlucky, he and Tom Ashley were the guys who really stepped up and sailed very well," Green said.

"The others didn't quite take their chances but it was a very random place to sail. We always knew there was a risk of variable results and we saw that.

"There wasn't quite enough consistency, they were one or two races short of a really good result."

Wind shifts and tricky currents made it a lottery in Qingdao. Green cited the case of Australia's dominant world Laser champion Tom Slingsby who didn't threaten the top-10 and finished 22nd overall.

Other New Zealanders featured at various times, with Jo Aleh leading the Laser Radial fleet at the halfway stage before fading to seventh; Pepper and Williams were second after three races but also had a poor second half; while Kendall struggled with a chest infection in finishing sixth in pursuit of a fourth Olympic medal.

Green hoped it would move funding body Sparc to continue their level of support for London in 2012, where New Zealand had plan "clever" to compete with the richer sailing nations and potentially set up a European base.

Needless to say, Ashley's boardsailing heroics were priceless for the sport.

"That was a really exciting day and it's been a privilege to work with such a talented, dedicated young man," Green said.

"Now you're going to see a whole lot of kids on windsurfers saying `wow, I could be a Tom Ashley'. It's exciting, kids will go down to Takapuna and think `I can get a board'. It's not an expensive class to get into."

-NZPA