KEY POINTS:
Four years after a disastrous showing at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, triathlete Hamish Carter faced his demons in Athens. This extract from his biography covers the biggest race of his life.
We were the last of the New Zealand team to arrive at the village. I'd decided to put up a wall around me because I knew how the Olympics had destroyed me in Sydney and I was determined not to let it happen again. Instead of walking around the village, soaking up the atmosphere, I tried to shut it all out. Of course, that was the wrong thing to do.
It's very hard to settle in because everything is so foreign. The food hall is the size of Eden Park. You walk 100m to get a piece of bread, then off somewhere else to get a piece of lettuce. You're given a huge bag of new team clothes to wear and every time you put something on, you have to take it out of the packaging. There was wrapping paper all over the damned room.
Inevitably at the Olympics, everything seems to get stuffed up. Our bikes were delayed and there was some muck-up with [team-mate] Bevan Docherty's room. The day we arrived, Dave Currie, the Chef de Mission, told us we were required for a little initiation ceremony. Typically, I wasn't keen. I didn't want anyone telling me how I should be thinking. I turned inward, started to get a bit angry and was trying to control the game.
That's when things began to unravel. I was uncomfortable with the village environment and just wanted to be left alone to do my race. I almost dug my toes in and refused to go. The ceremony including a Maori welcome where we were each given a pounamu pendant. I walked away feeling uplifted, but underneath I wasn't good. The bad feelings I associated with Sydney [Olympic Games in 2000, where he finished 26th] were on the rise.
On my third day there, a huge buzz ran through the New Zealand camp. Sarah Ulmer had won the pursuit. She came back to the village and you couldn't help but be caught up in it. When you're waiting to compete, celebrating someone else's success is the hardest thing to do. But for me, it was more that. I stood at the very back and watched everyone do the haka, watched the champagne flow.
I was pleased for her, but I also felt gutted. Mostly, I felt fear. I thought, "Oh my God, I am never going to have that. Sarah and I have the same sponsors. It'll be Sarah this, Sarah that, and I'm going to be chopped liver." Roger [Mortimer, manager] will say, "Sorry Hamish, it's over for you. I went to bed that night a nervous wreck and hardly slept a wink. An endless procession of anxieties raced through my mind. Do I have the right gears on my bike? Gee, Greg Bennett looks fit. Robbo's a much better runner than I am. Bevan has won just about every race he's entered this year. How am I going to beat these guys? I hope I can finish without stuffing up ... The next morning I felt exhausted. I was convinced I'd blown it. My confidence was at ground zero.
I had to talk to Marisa [his wife] immediately and went to the team room to ring on the landline. Normally, it's a cool place to be, with silver ferns, pictures of Olympians such as John Walker and positive quotations plastered all over the walls. I'd put up with the albatross of Sydney hanging around my neck for four years and now the same old demons were haunting me. I felt so defeated and must have been as white as a sheet because Michelle Tapper, who ran the desk, asked if I was OK. I lied and told her I was fine. But I was choking up and when I got Marisa on the line I told her I'd call her back. I figured bursting into tears in the team room wouldn't be great for morale. I thought I was having a nervous breakdown; I just felt utterly lost.
I got away from the New Zealand team area - away from where anyone might recognise me - and called Marisa back on my mobile. As soon as I heard her voice, I lost it. I was bawling so much I couldn't speak. There was Marisa, at home in wintry Auckland with a baby and a 3-year-old and a husband on the phone who was totally beside himself. "What's the matter?" she asked. "What are you doing?"
I managed to say something like, "It's too big. I can't do it," and Marisa blurted out, "What have you gone and done, had an affair or something?" It was such a Marisa thing to say. It was like a circuit-breaker and I cracked up laughing. Then she let me have it. "For Gods sake pull yourself together," she said. "You're at the Olympic Games. I trained my whole life to get there and I didn't make it. Now you're there and you're all upset and complaining. I'm at home and it's raining, and you've been away for two months. I refuse to let this be a waste of time. Stop thinking about all this crap that doesn't matter. Whatever happens you have two great kids and we have a fantastic life. Just enjoy it." She really blew up at me and it was like a light switching on.
I realised that I might lose the race, but I saw it for what it was. Just a race. I had wanted it so much that it had become a kind of prison. It was almost as though I had to let the race go in my mind to have a chance to win. Otherwise the pressure of the Olympics would have consumed me. I reckon 80 per cent of athletes don't actually enjoy it or perform as well as they should. You put absolutely everything into it and can't understand what goes wrong. Few people have the confidence to let it go - to recognise it's beyond their control and accept that what will be, will be.
After I got off the phone I stayed sitting where I was and, for the first time, properly looked at the village around me, at the flags with the rings, and thought "I'm at the Olympic Games and I'll never be here again. Damn it, I'm going to have a good time and I don't care what happens in the race." I knew that when the gun went, I would fight to the death. I knew I was in the shape of my life and that all I needed to do now was get to the start line in some sort of positive frame of mind.
I knew my fitness was exceptional, but in my besieged state of mind that had scared me, too, because it meant that I could potentially win. That spun me off thinking about the result. And thinking about the result freaked me out. What if someone got away on the bike? What if I had a bad swim and missed the lead group? And, scariest of all, what if the race went perfectly according to plan and I simply wasn't good enough?
It was as though Marisa had lifted a veil from my eyes. I felt lighter, 100 times more positive. I started to meet people's eyes, talk to them and enjoy the Olympic experience. I found Dave Currie and thanked him for persuading me to go to the welcome and told him how I wished I'd been in a frame of mind to remember it more clearly.
On my last night in the village I saw Sarah [Ulmer] in the food hall. She asked how I was doing. I said, "You know what? I was pretty bad, but now I'm good."
"Dude," she said, "just go and enjoy it."
Day by day I felt calmer and calmer. Even the race briefing was good for me, two days before the event. All the athletes who had aimed their lives at this event were corralled into one room. I looked around at all the intense faces and realised not one of them was happy. I gained a quiet confidence from that. No one understood what the Olympics were about. It had taken time, but I'd finally got it: the Olympic Games were a load of bullshit, a load of hype. It was just a race, a triathlon. I reminded myself that I'd been doing them for 12 years and that I was pretty good at them. I let go of all those negative feelings and told myself to imagine I was going down to St Heliers to do a local race and have a whole lot of fun. From that moment on, I don't think anything could have upset my state of mind. Right then, that's where I started to win the race.
I knew I'd be all right when I wasn't thrown by [fellow New Zealand triathlete] Nathan Richmond's decision to break an agreement to help me in the race as payback for helping him get his spot on the team. I'd blocked for him and slowed the chase after he got away during the bike leg of the last selection race. That gave him a chance to start the run with a big lead, and as a result, he'd been selected to join Bevan and me in Athens.
We'd made a deal he'd race the Olympics for me. As it turned out he wasn't going well enough to help during the bike leg, but he could have been a big help in the swim. He's a good swimmer and the idea had been for him to pick a start position on the pontoon near me. Even if I hadn't been able to position myself to swim on his feet, having a strong swimmer on my side of the pack could have made it the favoured side. When Nathan picked a spot on the pontoon that wasn't my end, I realised he was going to do his own race. Part of me was pleased for Nathan, but I was also disappointed because we had a deal. I'd flown to Tasmania after qualifying for Athens specifically to help Nathan make the team. I wouldn't do it again.
Later I discovered my near-breakdown wasn't uncommon. On the plane trip home, Sarah and sailboarder Barbara Kendall both said they had meltdowns before their big successes. It's like releasing a pressure valve, letting all your fears and anxieties pour out. I had to literally crack ... had to have that bollocking from Marisa to be able to see things clearly for what they were. It was one of her finest moments.
The night before the race, I stayed with Nathan, Bevan and the coaches Chris and Mark Elliott in an apartment overlooking the finish at Vouliagmeni Beach, on a beautiful piece of coast.
When I went to bed, I looked at the photos of my kids, Phoebe and Austin, on my computer. As I looked at Austin, I thought about what Marisa had said. He doesn't care whether I win or lose. Sure it's the Olympics, but to a little boy it's just a race. All he wants is his dad to come home. I turned out the light. I felt ready.
[During the race the next day, Carter and Docherty fight it out for first place. A kilometre before the end of they are tied.]
Bevan matched strides with me for 50m or so, then I couldn't see him any more out of the corner of my eye or hear his breathing. I was in a world of hurt but sensed I was pulling away. I had to keep a tiny bit in the tank because if he came back at me I'd need to go again. I was preparing myself mentally for that so it was a bit of a surprise when I took a quick look around and saw the gap that had opened up. "Right," I told myself, "give it everything."
A few seconds later I rounded the bend and saw the finish tape. That's when it really hit me: "Crikey, I'm going to win." I had about 50m to enjoy it. It was unreal; I couldn't really believe it was happening. I resisted the temptation to veer over to where someone in the crowd was waving a New Zealand flag, in case I tripped over the legs of the crowd-control barriers, and then I ran through the tape and collapsed in a heap. Bloody hell, I'd done it!
* Extract from Get Carter: The Hamish Carter Story, by Phil Taylor (Hodder Moa Beckett, $39.95), released on Thursday (August 9)
