KEY POINTS:
Tom Ashley has a gold medal. Now he is focusing on a gold band.
In January, the 24-year-old Olympic boardsailing champion will marry his fiancee, Mariana, in her native Brazil.
And that is about as far ahead as Ashley is thinking.
After last night's thrilling win, in which he snatched the top medal from three other contenders, Ashley wasn't giving any hints as to what his future might hold, other than nuptials.
He met Mariana years ago when he first went to Brazil to work with his longtime training partner, Brazilian international boardsailor Ricardo Santos.
"But we were just acquaintances then; we didn't get together until last year."
He met her then at a regatta in Italy - Mariana is also a sailor, representing Brazil in the dinghy classes. Their romance explains why he is so fluent in Portuguese, the language of Brazil.
But this is no ordinary Kiwi sailor. Ashley speaks several languages, and his intelligence, intense ability to focus and his tenacity have long been recognised in New Zealand yachting circles.
"I have worked very, very hard for this," he said last night. "I wouldn't say I have lived like a monk, but I have been really, really, really focused."
So focused that he spent the 24 hours before the race close to tears because of tension, nerves and emotion.
Last night, he had to focus again, to stem what he thought would be a flood of tears at the medal ceremony.
"I managed to hold it off," he grinned.
He also managed to hold off his competition on the water to give New Zealand its third gold medal of the 2008 Games.
Olympic yachting gold medals are always earned rather than won, and Ashley earned his with a typical display of smart thinking, grit and endurance.
He crossed the line third in yesterday's final medal race, and that gave him enough points for victory - although he had wait for three other competitors to finish before he could be sure.
"I was just grateful to get there," he said once the medal was assured.
"I thought the guys behind me were going to catch me at one stage, but they weren't able to."
As triumphant New Zealanders gathered on the boat ramp in Qingdao to salute Ashley, his ecstatic coach Grant Beck said: "That was the best race I have ever seen Tom sail.
"His game plan was to get even a small advantage really quickly and then review things as he went on."
Easier said than done. With Ashley, France's Julien Bontemps and Briton Nick Dempsey all within a point of one another, keeping tabs on opponents required great mental agility and vision.
Also part of Ashley's calculations was the volatile Israeli sailor Shahar Zubari, who was suited perhaps best of all the racers to the Qingdao conditions.
"Tom is a very smart guy," said Beck. "He is capable of computing all sorts of things in his head while he is sailing along, and that's what he did.
"He's very tough too. Even though he is one of the biggest guys there, he is strong enough and has endurance enough to stay with the little guys in the light conditions and then go for it downwind."
Yesterday, Ashley wasn't too worried about the Israeli - he was too far behind on overall points to get the gold - but he had to maintain his lead over the Frenchman and the Briton.
And that was what he did. The race was won by Hong Kong's King Yin Chan, who was well out of medal contention. Zubari recovered from a poor start to come second, and Ashley was third.
Bontemps took silver by one point and Zubari got past Dempsey for bronze.
Beijing 2008 is shaping up as one of New Zealand's best Olympics.
Ashley's gold - New Zealand's ninth medal - puts these Olympics close to the heady days of Los Angeles in 1984, when 11 medals were brought home.
And more medals are on the cards. Sarah Walker and Marc Willers are hot favourites to be on the dais in the BMX racing, Ben Fouhy is in the K1 1000m canoeing final and Steven Ferguson and Mike Walker are in the final of the K2 1000m.
