KEY POINTS:
At his peak, Olympic Games triathlete Bevan Docherty rarely puts a foot wrong, but when he's had a few beers and too little sleep he is capable of confusing the Great Wall of China with a BMX race.
On Friday morning, bronze medallist Docherty awoke after a night of celebration and a brief sleep to realise he was running late for the bus to the BMX cycling venue.
He was keen to see Marc Willers race, so he got dressed, raced outside and sighed with relief when he found his New Zealand teammates about to depart on a bus.
"I said are you getting on the bus? And they're like `yep, just follow us, so I jumped on'," he told NZPA.
A relieved Docherty slumped into a seat next to equestrian rider Heelan Tompkins.
When a roll call was carried out, self doubts began to enter his fuzzy brain cells.
"I'm like `oh, this is pretty organised for the BMX'," he said.
"I sat down next to Heelan and I commented `oh, it should be good fun at the BMX here', and she was like `ha, ha, ha, no we're going to the Great Wall'.
"For a good kilometre I thought everyone was in on the joke, but then I started to realise I'm going to have to spend a hungover day out at the Great Wall.
"I was caught between spending the day out at the Great Wall of China hungover, or making myself look like a complete idiot, and jumping off the bus.
"I went with the idiot, ended up walking home and didn't get to the BMX in the end. I was pretty tired from the 5km walk home."
He watched BMX riders Willers and Sarah Walker race on TV, and has since had to endure endless ribbing from teammates whenever he goes near a bus.
Yesterday, Docherty was able to catch the correct vehicle to the mountainbike races.
He said the problem with the Olympic Games was that there was so much going on that it was hard to fit it all in, unless you went without sleep.
He pinpointed rower Eric Murray and badminton player Craig Cooper as leading off-the-field performers.
"If you want a good night out, you hang around with Eric the rower, he always seems to be the sort of larrikin party guy, and I guess Coops the badminton player, I had a few good nights out with him.
"There's a whole bunch of guys, it's always a good night out with the boys."
- NZPA
