Triathlon: Giving it his best shot

He already has silver and bronze Olympic medals to his name and while the talk after Beijing was about adding the missing colour of medal to his collection, the pressure has come off Bevan Docherty.

Despite being selected to compete in the triathlon at the Olympics on Tuesday, August 7, Docherty, 35, has had a mixed season. His last ITU World Triathlon outing in Kitzbuhel, Austria, on June 21 saw him take 22nd place, and he managed eighth in the ITU World Triathlon event in San Diego in May. His most recent outing, the Life Time Tri in Minneapolis last weekend saw him pick up third place. His world triathlon ranking is 14.

However, the upside of those results means Docherty, Taupo's favourite sporting son, is not one of the medal favourites in London, though he's hoping to surprise the naysayers on the day.

"I kind of have mixed feelings [about London]," he says. "My performances over the last few years haven't been that great but in a way I wanted to go into the event and have no expectations.

"I've changed things up this year and gone into things a bit more low key and relaxed ... I'm actually quite excited, I'm just going to have fun, go out there and do the best I can."

This will be his last Olympics, Docherty says, and while he has no illusions about the size of the challenge, he says it would be a mistake to underestimate him.

"I still believe I've got some good races in me but nowadays at this age, it's harder to hold a peak for long, extended periods of time so I've got to pick and choose my times and hopefully I get that peak right in London."

These days, California-based Docherty is a family man and when he's not training, he's hanging out with his kids McKenna, 21 months, and Fletcher, 6 months, although his punishing training schedule means he doesn't have as much energy for them as he'd like.

Docherty will race a sprint-distance triathlon in Hamburg this weekend and expects to see plenty of the Olympic competitors there.

"It's quite well-timed. A lot of people will be racing in Hamburg. They want a short, sharp hit out so it'll be quite a tough field."

From there, Docherty will head to England and join the Kiwi triathlon team at its base in Oxford, heading to London just before the triathlon event. He hopes that arriving in Europe with three weeks to spare before the big day will help him avoid the problems he had in Austria, which he blames on the travel.

"In Kitzbuhel, I had such a bad race, and I'm sure it was just jet lag. A few years ago, I used to be able to travel over there and race quite well off the travel but nowadays it just really hurts."

He says that London is "most definitely" his swansong.

"An Olympics campaign takes so much out of you and even the sport of ITU short course racing.

"I'm getting on a bit now and probably more suited towards the long distance stuff, so I'm struggling to keep up with it and I'm looking forward to doing other things."

"Other things" is likely to be more half-Ironman events.

Docherty won the Panama Half-Ironman event in February, passing seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong 2.5km before the finish tape. He'd also like to give Ironman events "a good nudge".