Multisports: Carter on top of the world

Hamish Carter crosses the line to win the Xterra World Championship at Makena, Maui. Picture supplied

Hamish Carter overcame a puncture to win the World Xterra championship in Hawaii yesterday, but he's not sure if he'd ever run the rugged cross-country race again.

"Man, it is the hardest race, it was hideous. At one stage I wondered if I would finish," Carter told the Herald. "There were people coming across the line covered in dirt and bleeding. It was like a war zone.

"I don't know if I'd do this race again, it was too damned hard."

Carter finished 19 seconds ahead of France's Olivier Marceau, a powerful cyclist and one of the five riders Carter broke away with on his way to winning the Olympic title in Athens.

He now adds a world title to his Olympic triathlon gold medal and banks one of the biggest pay cheques of his career.

Carter has won the New Zealand Xterra championship three times but this was his first attempt at the world championship held in Maui.

The event comprises a 1.5km sea swim, 30km mountain bike and 11km run - the latter legs over rough trails, lava rocks and sand.

Carter won US$25,000 ($37,800), but the big payday was in serious doubt when his rear tyre punctured with about 3km of the mountain-bike leg remaining. Carter was second on the swim and was riding with Marceau at the head of the field.

"I heard it start to hiss. The guys at [Ponsonby bike shop] Cyco had put this silicon stuff in my tyre tubes which fills a hole and is supposed to stop the air leaking. I was just praying it would fix itself. It slowed the leak down but for the last kilometre I couldn't corner because the tyre was on the rim and the bike was weaving around. I just managed to make it to the finish of the bike. I was so lucky."

Carter started the run with two other competitors, including United States Xterra champion Seth Wealing, a minute behind Marceau. "The ride was so hard and it was so hot, I was just struggling and I thought hopefully Olivier up the rode is just as bad, so I kept going.

"The run went back up into this rocky landscape. It was just awful, just rock on rock. I was grovelling but with about two kilometres to go we had this beach section and for the first time I could see him and he wasn't that far ahead. I thought, 'I've got him'.

"He was running scared and I think he'd pretty much burnt himself to pieces [trying to hold on]."

Carter took the lead with a kilometre left. "I was able to take the pressure off and I was, oh, you know, quite pleased."

Though Carter is one of triathlon's most consistent performers, a world title has eluded him. He was second in the triathlon world champs this year behind Britain's Tim Don, currently under suspension for missing three consecutive drug tests.

Though definitely not the same, he said becoming Xterra world champion was "cool".

"I'm very happy to win. I really had to work hard. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, [didn't know] how good these guys were going to be, particularly on the mountain bike."

The tough course suited athletes such as Carter, whose forte is strength rather than speed, though Carter says it didn't feel that way.

"I was running along thinking this should be what I'm good at but I felt like I was in the doghouse, just creeping, just going nowhere. Luckily I think Olivier was creeping just a bit more.

"It's a nice way to finish the year off. I need to just get home and stop training. I'm so tired."

Carter will not contest the World Cup triathlon in New Plymouth next month.