Defeating the mind's demons

By PHIL TAYLOR

A week before the race of his life Hamish Carter rang his wife, Marisa, at their Mt Eden home. The call worried her terribly.

The 33-year-old triathlete was in turmoil, fighting his emotions, his expectation and the knowledge this was his last chance on such a stage.

Marisa couldn't help thinking of Sydney, wondering whether nerves would again sabotage ambition and talent. At the 2000 Olympics, triathlon was the first event and, as the top-ranked triathlete in the world, her husband felt the weight of a nation on his shoulders.

He did not do well. In truth, it was a course that didn't suit: too soft a bike route, it played into the hands of the pure runners.

The image on the front page of the New Zealand Herald next morning was of utter dejection: Carter, head in hands, sitting in the gutter being comforted by his wife.

Later, there was criticism of Carter as one who did not deliver on the Sports Foundation funding he received. That cut deeper than he will admit.

Three days ago, just 24 hours out from the Olympic Triathlon, Carter called again. This time things were a whole lot different.


When Marisa put the phone down she knew the pieces had fallen into place in her husband's mind. He had defeated his bogey and found perspective. Carter had told her that family was everything to him and, Olympics or not, this was simply a race in which all you could do was your best, let your performance flow, and come what may. In that conversation he recalled the words of a coach from his rowing days who told him he just tried too hard.

Watching on TV the final minute of the Olympic triathlon when gold was assured, Marisa's eyes were dry when Carter breasted the tape.

She'd wept plenty during the week but that stopped with that phonecall the day before. "I knew then he was going to be all right".

Sydney was part of the journey to this moment, Marisa said yesterday.

"I think that [failure] was meant to happen.

"I don't think the timing was right for him in his life then. Everything happens for a reason."

In the years since, they have become a family with the arrival of Austin, 3, and Phoebe, 5 months, and he has been looking to life beyond sport.

Often in events requiring extreme training, the lives of champions are myopic; their sport demands all.

Yet for Carter, a more balanced life has worked. At the world champs, won this year by teammate Bevan Docherty, the Athens silver medallist, Carter was only a half-minute back.

Eleven years after he roared on to the world stage by taking bronze at the world championships in Manchester, he was still right there.

It's no surprise rivals showered Carter with tributes after the Athens race, the most apposite from fierce Australian competitor Greg Bennett (fourth in Athens), who said: "If you are going to be beaten, you want to be beaten by tough bastards."

While the public seemed to regard Carter as the nearly man, he always had the respect of those he raced.

He has won more World Cup races than anyone, had a long reign as the No 1-ranked triathlete, and was in the top 10 at world champs - including a second, a third, three times fourth, but never a first - in all but two of his dozen attempts.

Mr Consistency put that right in Athens. The King grasped his crown.