Multisports: Carter takes world championship silver

A well-timed break 10 days out from world triathlon championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, reaped a silver medal this morning (NZ time) for New Zealand's Olympic champion Hamish Carter.

Struggling with motivation after 14 years in the demanding sport, Carter and manager Roger Mortimer took a week off, and Carter lined up refreshed for the elite men's 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run event.

After a solid swim, Carter finished the cycle in a group of 10 with about a minute's lead over the chasing field. But the race was soon down to two as Carter and Great Britain's Tim Don battled it out over 10km.

Don edged away over the last 5km to win in one hour 51 minutes 32 seconds, 17sec ahead of Carter in what was almost certainly his last world championship.

Frenchman Frederic Belaubre was third in 1hr 52min 12sec, while New Zealander Kris Gemmell held on for fourth place, 1min 29sec behind Don.

Carter told NZPA he was rapt to be able to finish his world championship career on a high note.

"I'm pretty sore at the moment - it's a bit draining after all that racing, but I'm pleased to finish with a good effort," he said.

"At the moment I'm just enjoying the race, knowing that I did really well and when the sun comes up tomorrow, I'll see how weary these bones are.

"Racing at world champs level, I'm pretty sure it's my last. I just don't want to continue racing if I can't maintain that intensity and have the form.

"Since Athens, I've had some rough patches where I didn't think I could continue but I've always come back and raced well."

Carter said he came very close to not starting the world championships at all, finding it difficult to summon any motivation for the race.

"About 10 days before the race, I almost flagged it and came home because I just didn't think I could do it. But my manager Roger Mortimer said 'no, you've got to finish what you started'.

"He came over and we disappeared for a week, just cruised around. I did some light training and when I came back to the race, everything was back on line and I was ready to go."

Carter said the time off with Mortimer proved invaluable.

"He brought me back to what I enjoy about triathlon and why I do it, and then I wanted to race again.

"It was a real key turning point, I don't think I would have even made the start line without that."

Carter set the tone for his race with an excellent effort in the swim, finishing only six seconds down on the leaders before working through a solid cycle leg to finish on the heels of teammate Gemmell, who led going into the second transition.

"On the bike, the group sort of got bigger and bigger. We weren't riding that hard, but we had seven laps with some big hills. On about the fifth lap, a French guy had enough and he attacked. Everyone who had the legs pretty much went with him, and there were about nine of us who got off the bike with about a minute's lead on the rest of the field."

Don, who Carter rates highly as a runner, tailed the New Zealander for the first of the four-lap race, before Carter hit the front for the second.

"Tim is much more of a runner than I am, and I was hoping the bike would have taken a lot out of him so he wouldn't be running that well," Carter said.

But when Don upped the pace just after 5km, Carter found he couldn't respond.

"I just couldn't go with him. He put about 10sec in the end, he was just there but the gap was slightly too big to run across. It was frustrating not to be able to catch him because there were tons of kiwis yelling at me, but that's just the way it went."

Of the other New Zealanders, Clark Ellice took 16th place (1:53.44), and Shane Reed just edged teammate Terenzo Bozzone in the home straight to take 40th (1:57.54) to Bozzone's 1:57.57 41st place.

New Zealand team manager Barry Larsen said Olympic silver medallist and 2004 world champion Bevan Docherty had pulled out around 20km into the cycle leg.

"He had a leg infection which developed late this week, we think it came from a massage. He just wasn't well and pulled the pin on the bike at about 20km.

"Apart from that, it's been a really good day for the kiwis."

- NZPA