Triathlon: Slow swim leg scuppers any medal chance

A poor start sunk Northland's Nicky Samuels' Olympic dream in the triathlon.

She was behind the eight-ball after a poor swim leg on Saturday night (NZ time) to eventually finish 35th.

"I was pretty much last to the first buoy; I just haven't been able to nail the start of the swim," she said.

Once on the bike her responsibilities as part of the New Zealand team prevented her from trying to regain lost time in her strongest discipline.

"I didn't want to do any of the work to bring up any fast runners to the lead group, I just babysat at the back of the group and hopefully help Andrea [Hewitt] maintain the right position so that is the way I rode out the race. Essentially it was a case of trying to mess things up and slow the group up," she said.

The way she felt in the final discipline made her feel like she had made the correct decision.

"The run wasn't great either, the course was hard on the legs with the camber all the way, my calves are killing me. But I think my race was over after the start of the swim to be honest, from that point it was a case of hoping the other girls were doing well."

It was a case of so close and yet so far for top Kiwi triathlete Andrea Hewitt, who stayed in touch with the leaders for all but the final few kilometres to eventually finish in sixth place on a day when she had nothing left in her legs.

The gold medal was won in a thrilling sprint finish by Nicola Spirig (Switzerland) from Lisa Norden (Sweden), the two athletes were only separated thanks to a photo finish, with Spirig getting there by a few hundredths of a second. Erin Densham (Australia) won bronze.

Hewitt had until that point raced the perfect race, swimming in the main bunch and riding conservatively at or near the front of the field, emerging on the run in the lead group of half a dozen athletes, from which all the medals would come.

"I just didn't have the energy to keep going and I dropped off near the end. It was a rough swim and a good bike, it was going to be a perfect day but while I was up there for the first half of the run, I just didn't have the legs today.

"I was in the lead group at the start of the run then it went down to seven, six and five and unfortunately I just dropped off. I was okay early, there were a few surges early so I sat back to avoid that bit of tripping that was close to happening, I was staying at the back to keep out of trouble but eventually I just couldn't hold on any more."

Kate McIlroy raced strongly for 10th place on her long-awaited debut at the Olympic Games.

McIlroy was pleased with her performance in coming home tenth after always being prominent throughout the day.

"I am happy with that to be honest, the run was fast, I didn't think we worked that hard on the bike but we still had a good gap on the chase group and that helped me.

"I slowly worked my way through the field on the run after having a bad transition, a problem with my shoes held me up for five seconds or so when the tongue on one of my shoes got a bit tangled up. But I finished strongly and I am happy with 10th place," she said.