Hamish Carter and Bevan Docherty with the New Zealand flag after winning gold and silver in Athens. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Hamish Carter and Bevan Docherty rewrote history. They became only the second New Zealand duo to go gold-silver in an Olympic event. In 2014, former NZME sports journalist Michael Brown interviewed all the key players to tell their story.
33-year-old Hamish Carter arrived at the 2004 Athens Olympics with redemption on his mind. Four years earlier in Sydney as a heavy favourite at the first ever men's triathlon event, he finished 26th - more than two minutes out of the medals.
Four years later and four years wiser Carter's biggest competition wasn't just the demanding course and rising Athens heat but also 27-year-old teammate Bevan Docherty who two months earlier won the world championships in Portugal.
Hamish Carter (New Zealand): People see the Olympics as an inspiring place to go but it's terrifying and overwhelming most of the time. It's ugly, really ugly. Sydney played on my mind every minute of every day. It took me a long time to control it because it completely took over. You go in having done 10 years preparation and it was a complete disaster, so it undermines everything you believed in and everything you thought you were good at. You end up thinking, 'I must have this horribly wrong'. It led to a complete re-invention of myself, which was pretty ugly at times. Luckily, I had the right people around me to help me through it.
Mark Elliott (high performance director and Bevan Docherty's coach): I was heavily involved in his buildup to Sydney and he was really wound up. I remember going for a run with him the night before. Usually you go for an easy, 30-minute jog at 3pm but he wanted to do hill reps. I had to say to him, 'you've done the work, you don't need to be testing yourself now'. Hamish put a lot of pressure on himself to win and everyone else expected him to front up and win because that is what he had been doing at a lot of World Cups.
Carter: For a long time, I never wanted to go back to the Olympics but I knew I couldn't walk away from it having performed that way.
Kris Gemmell (New Zealand reserve): Hamish and Bevan finished fourth and fifth at the world champs in 2003 in Queenstown [to earn automatic selection for Athens]. The qualifying criteria was to finish in the top six. The second qualifying race was in Tasmania... and Nathan Richmond finished one spot in front of me and qualified for the Games. I was nominated as the reserve.
Nathan Richmond (New Zealand): I was the outside pick for the team. If you had your ear to the ground in the triathlon community, the understanding was Kris Gemmell was going to be the third guy. I earned my spot in early February racing in Tasmania. The reality of being part of that Olympic Games campaign, it was quite surreal. It's something I dreamed about ever since I was a young kid. I never wanted to be a fireman or dentist. I wanted to be the best I could be in sport and suddenly that pathway was coming to fruition.
Gemmell: Bevan and I made a pact. If we both made the Olympics, we would train every day together leading up to the Games. If one did and the other didn't, then we would still stay together and do the same training programme. The main goal was to stick together as long as we could and knew if we did it like that there would be some benefit down the track even if you didn't make the Games. The moment after I didn't qualify, I came back and packed up some stuff in Christchurch and followed Bevan.
Elliott: We wanted to make sure the guys had the best people around them. Both Hamish and Bevan like low-key approaches. They don't like intensity or extra fluff around the outside of the programme. It was a matter of having the right people around them and having guys they enjoyed the company of.
Gemmell: [Hamish's coach Chris] Pilone didn't want me at the training camp [in France]. He was worried I was going to create conflict because, not only was I going to be helping Bevan but I might also be on a mission to prove a point because I could have been on the team. I had also been going really well and had won two races before that. Mark and Bevan stepped in and said Kris wasn't there for that and would be a team player. Once that was sorted out it was all good.
Richmond: Hamish took me under his wing for a number of years and was quite instrumental in carving that pathway for me. There was no real strangeness to the buildup and I worked with people I knew. It was a neat thing to have.
Gemmell: We knew Hamish would have Nathan as a training partner. It wasn't about making it Hamish versus Bevan but, knowing the course, it was already looking like something like that could very easily happen.
Carter: There was natural tension in a group like that but Mark Elliott played a really critical role in controlling that. We couldn't have done it on our own. Bevan and I were two of the best triathletes in the world at the time and we were training together every day. That was massively beneficial because, without Bevan, I don't think I would have pulled my head out of my arse and actually fronted up. He made me the athlete I became.
Elliott: Bevan winning the [2004] world champs was probably one of the biggest things that shocked Hamish into realising he had a team-mate as good if not better than him at that stage. I'm sure that spurred him.
Carter: It wasn't good having him there because, when he got better, it pissed me off. If he ever beat me in training, it pissed me off. But at the time you deal with that. It either destroys you or makes you stronger. It didn't destroy us. We are good mates but highly competitive as well.
Elliott: We all bought souped-up remote control cars and got fairly competitive with those. We were racing those a lot on the tennis courts in our base in France. We brought them into the village in Athens and were racing them along this beautiful, smooth path in front of New Zealand house one day. A truck-load of swat guys turned up with AK47s and told us to shut it down. The Israeli building was just around the corner and they were worried we were terrorists.
Richmond: The course [for the Athens race] was incredibly hard. After the world champs in Portugal, when Bevan was awesome, the next day Sam Warriner, Hamish, Bevan, Mark Elliott and I jumped on a plane and flew to Athens to look at the course. I remember standing at the top of the bike climb and Bevan picking up a boulder and letting it go down the road. This thing gained incredible momentum and went flying into a bush. I was like, 'yikes, this is one serious climb'. And it was. Hamish said, 'it's going to be nutty'. They just laughed. We felt like we were getting insider trading on the course.
Elliott: I looked at the course and, knowing the strength of Hamish and Bevan on the bike, if there was one course that was going to suit them it was this. The steeper it was the better because they were getting leaner and leaner as they matured. We knew the course was going to hurt a lot of people but not them so much. We just sat at the top and smiled, really.
Carter: It brought home the type of race it was going to be. We looked at the course and thought, 'wow, this is what we wanted to see'. But I was in a position where, whatever the course, I had the smarts to figure out what I needed to do. I had won plenty of flat races, slow races, fast races. It didn't matter to me at the time.
Gemmell: Four or five days before the opening ceremony, we rode up into the mountains and it turned into a little bit of a race. Everyone was venting a little, which can help in a closed-circuit environment. It came down to Hamish and Bevan just going at each other and me just sitting on the wheel and watching it happen in front of me. We breasted at the top and they looked at each other and gave each other a wry smile and then looked for my reaction. I just put my hands in the air and shrugged my shoulders and thought, 'well, good luck to anyone who thinks they can ride up a hill with those blokes'. They couldn't drop each other. It got back to the coaches and Pilone had a quiet word to me on the way down, 'what the f*** went on up there?' He knew something was going on. He had a dressing down with Hamish when they got back and Mark might have done the same with Bevan. It was all in good spirits and probably something that needed to happen.
Carter: It's far less symbolic in my head. All I was there for was to do a ride. We were riding quite steadily but only because we were fit. I never unleashed hell on Bevan at all. I could have attacked him if I wanted to. I think we were both controlling our effort but both wanted to test each other. We were in incredible shape. We were flying up the hill.
Elliott: That might have been one session out of 20 or 30. It wasn't like they were going hammer and tongs at each other every day.
Simon Thompson (Great Britain): There were some stories going around about how fast Hamish was running on the track, like doing 10 1km repeats in 2.45, or something like that. There are always rumours and stories that go around.
Gemmell: Bevan went to the opening ceremony but Hamish stayed behind and decided that would be the day he would do his last key session. It was a swim followed by a two-hour bike followed by eight 1km runs on the track. Hamish had a young training partner with him at the time, Liam Scopes, and Clark Ellice trying to pace him. They were doing alternates but Hamish was going so fast he blew them out after six. I was there watching. Pilone came rushing over to me and said, 'Gemmell, Gemmell, we need you to get in. You need to help him'. I quickly jumped on the track and did the last two with Hamish. The last was 2.42, which was pretty quick given the whole session. And I knew he still had some left in the tank if he really wanted to empty himself. I went away from that session thinking, 'where's the nearest TAB?' Things were looking good for him and I knew what Bevan was doing. Bevan came back and did an almost identical session with almost identical times. I said to Mark, 'if I put them in a pot now they are as even as they can be and it will be just on the day'.
Carter: We had prepared for three years to do that one session. It was a very important afternoon. I had asked the guys to run 2.45, 2.48 kms. This was after a really hard swim and bike. The bike I did that morning was far and above the intensity of the race and I came off rooted, which was the intention. And then I was trying to run eight 1kms as fast as I could. I said to Pilone, 'don't tell me my time for the first three or four, I will run them hard and see where I end up'. Once we got to the fourth one he said, 'you're running under 2.50' and I'm like, 'it's on'. I had never run like that before.
Elliott: We always planned for Bevan to go to the opening ceremony. The Olympic bubble is something that can affect young guys. It was important he and Nathan went, as first-timers. Hamish planned to go in but, when he wasn't swimming that well, decided it was better to stay behind. I remember Bevan saying it was a frustrating thing to do but worth it and, when he went back to Athens again, he understood it and found it an easier environment to slot into.
Carter: I was a bit worried about my swim. The problem is, you lose a lot of strength as you run faster and the trick to the sport is trying to figure out how you develop as a swimmer while you run well. I didn't really figure that one out well so, on the start line in Athens, I was going to struggle in the water.
Mark Bone (swim coach for Carter, Docherty and Richmond): The biggest difficulty with Hamish going into the last part of training was that he was in such tremendous shape he had lost so much body fat. He was so lean and skinny it affected his swimming. When you don't have that buoyancy, you don't have the feel and he was really concerned about that. It was a matter of telling stories to him all the time, making him believe it will all be fine.
Gemmell: Hamish was a little concerned about his swim and wanted to fly Mark Bone over. They were doing video analysis of his swim. That was a bit of a red flag.
Bone: I was so busy, building [my swim school] Swimtastic. As much as he wanted me over there, I couldn't afford the time away. But my philosophy is that I'm useless when it comes to race time. I can help you do all the work but you have to race. If you depend on me, then you are depending on something that's never going to help you long-term. You have to make the athletes independent of you.
Carter: All that time you are preparing for that one race and one month out you are like, 'shit, I'm starting to drift on this one aspect' and you can't just make a change on the spot. It was a bit of a worry. But I was incredibly fit. If I could limit the damage in the water, I knew I could get back into the race.
Docherty: A couple of days before the race, Sarah Ulmer won her gold. I was with Mark Elliott watching her come back into the village. It's always a big deal when a Kiwi comes back with gold, or any sort of medal. I remember standing there in the background watching a lot of the team do the haka. It sent chills down the spine. It was pretty awesome to witness. I mentioned to Mark, 'geez, I would love to have something like that'. It was a pretty inspirational moment.
Carter: I was pleased for [Sarah] but I also felt gutted. Mostly, I felt fear. I thought, 'oh my god, I'm never going to have that'. I went to bed that night a nervous wreck and hardly slept a wink. The next morning I felt exhausted. I was convinced I had blown it. My confidence was at ground zero. I had to talk to Marisa immediately. I thought I was having a nervous breakdown, I felt utterly lost. As soon as I heard her voice, I lost it. I was bawling so much I couldn't speak. She let me have it. 'For God's sake, pull yourself together. You're at the Olympic Games. I trained my whole life to get there and didn't make it.' She really blew up at me and it was like a light switching on. I saw it for what it was, just a race.
Marisa Carter, Hamish's wife: I was worried sick when I got off the phone with Hamish. I was tearful on and off for a day or so because I thought it was going to be Sydney all over again.
Docherty: One of the best memories I have was the dinner the night before. We had rented an apartment. These other teams had chefs to cater for them and had a management team 10-strong. We had a couple of coaches and three athletes. The night before we all chipped in to cook dinner and sat down and ate together. It was a good, relaxed atmosphere. We sat on the deck and ate dinner and chatted. Everyone chipped in and felt like they were part of a team.
Carter: You get into the Olympics and it's so foreign, so different. When we moved out of the village to a house, and there were kitchens and bedrooms, a front door, it was like we were just at another race. All the song and dance around the edges was gone.
We were able to relax and not have a whole lot of people around us trying to help or do stuff for us - or saying, 'ohh, big race tomorrow guys'. We were just there having dinner. We could have been anywhere in the world and had done it hundreds of times before. We were able to unplug from what we were about to do, which was really important.
Thompson: Australia, New Zealand and Canada were the strongest at triathlon at that time so, if you were on the team, you were in the hunt for the medals. It was going to be the case in Athens on what was a brutal course.
Gemmell: Bevan is a very confident person and selfish by nature, which is why he's such a great athlete. I knew he was ready to go.
Richmond: Gemmell and I had joked earlier as we talked about our picks for the race. I said, 'Carter, Docherty and one of the Aussies'. Kris said, 'I'll go the same but I'll go Bevan then Hamish'. They were the camps we were sitting in. We believed in the people we were around
Bone: Bevan was the form horse. He was incredibly confident, amazingly confident. He knew he was in good shape and winning the world champs only heightened that. Hamish was the sentimental favourite but I still felt Hamish was in outstanding shape. I never bet, but I put a bet on for the pair of them to get gold and silver. That's how confident I felt. I did it as a statement to myself.
Richmond: I didn't sleep well the night before. I probably didn't get to bed until 1am. Whether that was nerves and the reality that my nation was waiting to watch us perform, I don't know. The gravity of that hit home and, on reflection, I don't think I did enough mental preparation or put in enough backstops for that anxiety.
Docherty: People said I was the favourite and I feed off that quite well. You can look at things positively or negatively and I try to take the positives out of everything. I was just excited to be favourite and it boosted my confidence. I looked at in the way that everyone was fearful of me and it was my sort of course.
Richmond: Hamish seemed to be on a mission to remain relaxed and not make the same mistakes he made in Sydney. He had learned from that campaign and lessons that were invaluable.
Thompson: At the pre-race briefing, you have to sit through the rules and regulations of the event. It's called the show and shine and everyone is checking each other out to try to see how fit everyone is. It's all so superficial. Hamish was just a couple of rows in front of me and he was fast asleep. I thought, 'wow, Hamish is pretty relaxed'
Elliott: Pilone and I were sitting in the gutter about 15 minutes before the pontoon callup. We were sitting there doing nothing because Hamish and Bevan were ready. Simon Whitfield ran past looking for a bike pump or something and Ivan Rana looked pale. He's a dark-skinned Spanish guy and looked as pale as a soccer ball. Those guys looked like they were about to face death and our guys looked like they were about to face the race.
Andrew Saville (journalist): They lined up for the race. All the athletes were keeping warm and flicking their legs in nervous energy. Hamish was sitting on the ground near me over the barrier. I have never seen anyone look so bloody relaxed before a big event. I was chewing the fat with him and I remember thinking, 'god, I wouldn't be talking to anyone before a race like that'. I said, 'g'day' and 'make sure you come over here when you win'. He said, 'yep, OK'.
Carter: I definitely noticed a much higher level of anxiety among others, which surprised me. In Sydney it was the other way around. I was the one freaking out and feeling nervous.
Richmond: You are called out according to country so I was 29, Hamish was 27. It was pretty surreal. To see the people lining the course was incredible, the two helicopters hovering above you, the downward force, the noise, the marshalls lined up. Hamish had waited. I said, 'good luck, you have done an incredible amount of work and you truly deserve to do well today'. Hamish was so skinny. He has this nervous thing where he spins his wedding ring with his thumb and he was so skinny it was spinning. He said, 'thanks a lot, you too'. And then he walked out onto the pontoon.
Simon Whitfield (Canada): I stood on the start line with Hamish in Sydney and he was world No 1 and ranked to win. I was totally off the radar, ranked about 27th. I looked up to Hamish, who seemed pretty nervous and I had no pressure on me. I turned to him and said, 'I hope we don't get eaten by any sharks'. He looked at me with this funny face and basically said, 'shut up and get away from me'. Four years later, we were standing on the start line and I was the defending champion and all the pressure was on me. Hamish was considered at the time past his prime. Hamish turned to me and said, 'there are some beautiful fish out there in the Mediterranean' and I basically looked at him and said, 'shut up and get away from me'. It really symbolised where we were at in our preparation and mental attitude.
Carter: Athens wasn't necessarily about a result. It was about producing a performance I could be proud of. I was resigned to the fact that might mean anything from 10th to 50th. But that was separation I found and it worked.
Docherty: You are so nervous before a race like that. I kind of zone out. If someone asks me a question, they're really not going to get much from me. I try to hold back the nerves and not let them affect me too much. I knew I was going to work but I tried to stay focused and block out anything else.
Thompson: Bevan was more of a mongrel. You had to go to war to beat him. If he had a bad day he finished sixth or seventh. He never finished 30th.
Gemmell: I [was calling the race for TVNZ and] told Brendan Telfer before it started what was going to happen. He pushed the lazy button on the mic and said, 'you can't do that, you can't call it this early'. I said, 'well, you asked me and I'm just telling you, this is what is going to happen'. When you train with these guys and race against everyone else in that field, there are no secrets. You know exactly what level everyone is at. It's not rocket science in our sport. You can't change your form dramatically from one week to the next unless you are up to no good.
Carter: I wasn't happy where I was at on the swim leg. [Australia's] Greg Bennett had got onto my hip straight off the dive. It makes it really hard to swim fast when someone is on your drag, so I drifted back. I was a lot further back than I should have been. At that point in my mind, I had to relax and go with it because there was nothing I could do about it. You are in the water for 17 minutes and well back and it's a long time to be like, 'oh shit, oh shit, this is not good'. In Sydney, it would have affected me but, in Athens, I trusted myself to be able to get back into the race. I knew the race wouldn't be won or lost in the swim. I kept telling myself, 'this is just the start, it's going to be OK'.
Richmond: On the swim, I think Hamish expected me to go down to him but it doesn't work like that. I got out of the water second behind Marko Albert of Estonia but my heartrate was through the roof. It was higher than it ever should have been. I had worked extremely hard. It was a hard swim and the water was warm so it wasn't refreshing. I went through transition and there was a string of athletes. At that point, it felt out of control. I didn't feel like I was in control of my race and my destiny.
Docherty: The nature of that course, it was just a matter of coming out in touch and staying out of trouble. I knew on the bike was where the real damage was going to be done so everything went according to plan on the swim.
Bone: I knew Nathan would be quite dominant in the swim. I was looking for Hamish and Bevan and when you see 33rd and 18th you go, 'geez, have they done enough?' But they were within seconds of the lead and had done enough work so I wasn't too worried.
Carter: I was definitely down after the swim but was confident I could bridge any gap on the bike.
Heading out of the water, Hamish Carter was 30 seconds behind the leaders but he didn't panic. Carter and Docherty knew the race was going to be decided on the bike and that is where they made their move.
Richmond: I was riding in a string of athletes and the noise... the Swiss cowbells, the German flags. About two-thirds up the hill all I heard was, 'get on my wheel'. It was Hamish and he was tap dancing up this hill. Everyone was in a grind, in a push, he was just tap dancing his way up this climb. I got out of my saddle, tried to put the power on and there was nothing there.
Carter: I rode the first lap quite hard. I felt like I rode it a bit hard but 10 minutes later I realised how fit I was because I was like, 'man, I feel pretty good'. On the first lap there were a couple of attacks but when we went up the hill for the second time, everything calmed down because everyone was like, 'f***, that's a hard hill' and it was really, really hot. Guys became incredibly cautious because, every time we got to the hill, it became a huge effort to get up it each time. Without really instigating anything, a breakaway formed and we distanced ourselves from the rest of the field.
Andrew Johns (Great Britain): I saw this break go but I was on Rasmus Henning's wheel and was waiting for him to bridge it but he didn't. He had won the test event and was extremely fast on a bike but I found out later he's not very good on steep hills. The gap opened and opened. I didn't panic but I thought, 'that's the group, it's now or never'. I felt good on the bike and had been training specifically for that. I did the descent and looked around and, 'holy shit, it's Bevan and Hamish, Olivier Marceau, no one is going to catch us. Let's do it'. Straight away we started working well together. We had the six best bike riders in the sport in that break so no one was going to catch us. No one skipped a turn, the whole ride.
Carter: It was a good-sized group. It was manageable. It was a group of people you could trust. I say trust because there are some guys who pretend to be tired on the bike and then run really fast. This group was an honest group. On the last lap or so AJ stopped taking turns and I know him really well. He copped a bit of abuse. It came to the point where he was rooted and he couldn't do any more. When he came off the bike, he was dropped instantly. But at the time I was worried because, if AJ was fresh and saving himself, we were in trouble. We had ridden quite hard.
Docherty: As soon as that breakaway happened, I did my best to make sure that group stayed away. I felt like I worked a little harder than some of the other guys to make it happen. That was fine. I was in a position where I could win a medal because that's what I wanted. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have worked as hard on the bike and conserved a little bit more energy but you never know. That might have changed the attitude of the group. It's a fine line. I did what I needed to do to win a medal.
Johns: It was perfect. The only guys I was worried about were Hamish and Bevan.
Docherty: Hamish and I were trying to keep the momentum of the group going. We were egging each other on and helping each other out.
Carter: It was good [to have Bevan there] but it didn't make any difference. We weren't working together. It never occurred to me. There were just five other guys. We were allies until we got off the bike and then it was war. That's how it is.
Brendan Telfer (TVNZ commentator): I remember Kris jumping around like a firecracker the closer they got to the finish line. When we went to the breaks and took the headphones off we would have a chat and he was getting more and more excited, 'we are going to win this, we are going to win this'. I remember saying to him, 'Kris, calm down, I have been calling races with New Zealand athletes at Olympic Games for 25 years and, time and time again, I see them go out strongly, show their hand and then get run down'.
Gemmell: I just knew how good they were and who they were up against. The race was breaking apart in exactly the way we all spoke about leading into it. For me, it was obvious it was going to go the way it did. Three of the guys in that group couldn't run out of sight on a foggy night, so you're not worried about them. The guys behind were losing time because the strongest cyclists were in the front and willing to work. The guys in the second and third chase group might have been faster runners but were putting in the work going up the hill so weren't going to catch up.
Bone: I was just sitting at home watching it on TV with my wife and I said, 'my god, these guys are going to do it'. This was before they got off the bike. They just looked so, so smooth. Every time they went up the hill and others were falling apart, you knew straight away it was going to be the downfall of every athlete because every time they hit the hill they didn't try to ride away. They were just smooth and rolled over it.
Carter: We were just trying to keep it together, not get ahead of ourselves. At one point my front wheel rubbed someone else's - it might have been AJ's. If you crashed at that point, your race was over. I remember someone saying, 'just everyone calm down'. We were relying on each other. We knew the break was the break and it was the ideal size to have away.
Whitfield: I hesitated when the breakaway went. I nearly bridged it with Simon Thompson but he crashed and we were done. It was over. We had a lot of passengers in our pack. There were a couple of guys in there who were like, 'I just want to beat Simon Whitfield'. I thought that was bizarre. We just rolled around. Nathan Richmond was chasing, which was also bizarre to see. A Kiwi chasing a Kiwi. I understand it's an individual race but at the time I was like, 'what is this guy doing?'
Carter: The last couple of times up the hill I definitely noticed I was getting control of the race. People were starting to get tired so I didn't need to ride hard. I was just thinking, without really trying, 'this is going my way'. You have to be patient because if I had attacked on the bike I would have been out on my own and that would have been a disaster and this group wasn't riding slowly. A young Hamish Carter might have tried to show the dominance I thought I had but that would have been a mistake. I missed a turn every now and then, pretending to be tired. If you never miss a turn people think, 'shit, this guy isn't tired'. Last time up the hill I definitely could have dropped everyone but I was conserving energy. I still had a 10km run to come and you don't know how people are feeling.
Johns: On the bike I was thinking, 'I can win this thing'. Out of the rest of the group, I thought Bevan would be the one to challenge. In 2003, I was winning everything but I had a big bike accident later that year and fell at 55kmh. I had some huge back issues and was never the same after that. I was holding it together. As soon as I got off the bike, my whole lower back locked up. It was the first step. I hobbled to the end in 16th.
Docherty: I worked a little harder than I should have on the bike so, for the first half of the run, I was on the back foot. I was really struggling. For the first 5km it was just a matter of hanging on as long as I could. You just have to dig deep and try to ignore the pain. Hamish certainly went out at a very strong pace.
Carter: Bevan was a quicker starter. I had anticipated him putting a gap on us out of that transition and breaking away but had a slow transition so I got the jump on him. I didn't try to run hard out of transition but, the form I was in, I did. I just ran away and off I went. I had a small gap and Pilone was yelling, 'wait, don't', so I slowed down. Bevan and Sven caught up and I went to the back of the group to watch how they were running for a couple of kilometres. I just wanted to suss out the situation I was in. That was quite hard because I wanted to go. I was aware it was a really hot day but I needed to see how Bevan was feeling because he's a quality athlete and I couldn't take anything for granted. I knew Sven probably wasn't the issue. I knew Bevan was going to be the main threat.
Sven Riederer (Switzerland): My plan was to stay with Hamish and Bevan. I was 23. It was just an honour to run in their slipstream.
Docherty: It took about 5km until I was able to gather a bit more composure. From that point on, I felt like I was able to race again as opposed to just hanging on. It was good I came right but it would have been better to start the 10km in control. It was a matter of putting myself in a medal position and it happened early on in the run.
Riederer: Hamish and Bevan were too strong. I was just trying to defend the Olympic medal.
Docherty: I was certainly worried about Sven, and also Hamish, but my biggest concern was Greg Bennett who was running us down in fourth. My goal was to win an Olympic medal so I didn't really want the pace to slow down too much and for it to become a tactical race. It was just a matter of keeping that pace so he didn't catch us.
Carter: With about 3km to go we were all running quite tactically. I think we could have run a lot quicker but Greg wasn't going to catch us. It came down to a bit of cat and mouse for the last 6km. We didn't run that quickly but there were three of us and three medals. It was a case of biding your time and waiting.
Elliott: On the last lap of the run it was pretty clear we were going to win two medals. Pilone and I were standing, looking at each other going, 'holy f***, these boys are going to absolutely nail it'. It was pretty clear they were going to run away from Riederer because it looked like he was giving it everything while the other two were comfortable. No one was going to catch them.
Docherty: I made the initial surge with about 1km to go in the hope of dropping Sven. He had been hanging on the whole time and we were able to drop him relatively easily.
Carter: Bevan attacked and had done a couple of surges before that. When he attacked, I went with him. The lift in pace wasn't too hard. I still felt in control. As we both got away he said, 'hey, we've dropped the Swiss guy and we are going to get a medal'. It cracked me up. I was thinking, 'I wouldn't be talking because, when you talk, you lose a breath and more than likely your body is going to flood with lactic acid'. As soon as Bevan made that comment, I attacked and went over the top. That's when I put everything down. If he was with me with 200m to go, he would probably have beaten me so I brought the finish line back quite a bit to say, 'the race finishes there, get there as fast as you can'. It was great execution of technique and speed when you are really, really tired.
Elliott: I said to Bevan the night before, 'have a great day, you've done all the work'. The one thing I probably didn't say to him was, 'back yourself in a sprint like you did at the world champs' and that was the difference between gold and silver, that he didn't back himself to be there. He was probably more worried about keeping a medal than winning a gold medal. That showed Hamish's maturity compared to Bevan and where they were in their careers.
Docherty: In hindsight, maybe I should have gone into it with the goal of winning gold. It was my first Olympics and my goal was to win an Olympic medal and I achieved that. I was super happy to have achieved that. It was a special moment not only for me but also Hamish and New Zealand. To cross the finish line and very quickly realise I was part of one of the most memorable sporting moments in New Zealand sporting history, let alone triathlon history, was pretty cool. It was a life-changer for me. A dream come true.
Carter: I expected him to come back after my attack. I thought he would catch up because we hadn't really gone to war yet. And we didn't. When I realised I had dropped him, I went again to extend again. I was still quite clinical. I was still trying to run to the finish line but it suddenly comes to the realisation that the performance you have delivered is good enough to win the race. It's amazing. It's everything you have worked towards for a very long time. You spend your whole life dreaming about what it will be like and try to prepare for it but when you get to it, it's nothing you can comprehend. It's too hard to imagine. It's a great feeling and never goes away. It also verifies everything you have done in the past.
Bone: When Hamish made that break, I said, 'go, you mother, go'. I broke down. It was such an emotional time.
Gemmell: I wasn't allowed to say anything. [Telfer] took total control over the last 30 seconds. It was hilarious. About four minutes before it happened, just after Hamish started to break away, he reached across and started to admit I got it right but said, 'I'm going to call this in'. With 300-400m to go, he put his hand on the lazy button and just cut me completely and took over. You don't hear a word from me. Right at the end he let his button off and you just hear me giving a bit of a cheer.
Telfer: I had been broadcasting at Olympic Games since 1976 and the only gold medal I had ever called involving a New Zealander was the hockey gold in Montreal in 1976. For a long time among TVNZ commentators, people said Telfer was jinxed. The worst example was Craig Barrett in the 50km walk in Kuala Lumpur in 1998. I remember sitting there with John Davies after about 48kms with Barrett well ahead and I turned to John and said, 'John, we're going to call our first gold medal at any Games' and, almost on cue, Craig Barrett fell over. When Carter won it was like I had broken my drought, and I got two for the price of one.
Carter: I collapsed at the finish line and got told off by an official for lying down because it was a bad look for the sport. Bevan came in and it was quite cool he was there. He was really happy, I was really happy. I don't know if I would have been as happy as him if I had got second but I also understand why. And we had achieved something quite special on that day. It still remains. I couldn't have done it without him and the fact there were two New Zealanders there made it more special.
Saville: When Hamish came down the finish line and it was clear he was going to win, he looked absolutely buggered, absolutely exhausted. He staggered around a bit. Sarah Ulmer was standing on the opposite side to us and he went over to hug her. I had a red hat on, the Philadelphia Phillies. It wasn't a baseball cap, more like a cricket floppy. It stood out like dog's nuts. I yelled out to him and he came across. I was live on radio so got the first interview, which was fantastic. I think my first question was, 'can you believe you're an Olympic gold medallist?' He almost fell to his knees. He was still completely exhausted and said, 'no, I can't believe what I've done'. It was probably one of the best broadcasting experiences I have ever had.
Docherty: My family was in the crowd so I did my best to head over and see Mum and Dad and my sister. My dad always wanted an All Black for a son. Winning an Olympic medal in front of my parents, I think he forgave me.
Elliott: Pilone and I danced around the carpark for about five minutes. We stayed out to watch Nathan finish.
Richmond: I was in survival mode. They had this board, much like a road worker's board, with flashing lights. It said current time and temperature. Underneath it said, temperature in 10 minutes and that number was always bigger than what it was currently. '10.56am, 38.6 degrees. Temperature in 10 minutes, 41.2 degrees.' If that's not a mind-bugger, I don't know what is. I don't recall the last 1km of the race. I finished like Craig Barrett. I collapsed. I was completely exhausted and came to with a couple of IVs. I was on a medical stretcher and that's when I realised the whole campaign was over. I had no idea what the guys had done. When I came to, I said, 'how did they go, how did they go?' Pilone said, 'bloody good, the boy has done it'. It hadn't been a positive day for me but to hear that and to see the excitement in someone like Pilone, who doesn't normally show emotion, was telling.
Bone: Then the phone started ringing. Right through the race, the phone kept ringing or people were texting. I couldn't keep up with it and didn't try to because I was engrossed in the TV.
Whitfield: I crossed the line and was so disappointed. It wasn't a fun experience. Our team fell apart. We were a disaster going in, but I learned a lot. I really didn't give it everything I had. My whole attitude changed after that. You do all that training and you couldn't be bothered performing. I crossed the finish line and just sort of stood there, looked a little dazed. When I realised Hamish had won, there's this great picture. It looks like we're making out as we embrace with these huge smiles. I couldn't have been happier for him.
Thompson: There are guys you want to win and guys you don't want to win because they are from countries that are a bit suspect. Both Hamish and Bevan were good guys and were clean. I was pretty pleased they had put it together.
Richmond: Leaving the finishing pen, I was bombarded by supporters who thought I had won the gold medal because I was in the New Zealand uniform. They wanted photos and autographs. Not many of them could speak English so you just roll with it not realising until later how wrong they got it.
Carter: When you finish, you get manhandled through interviews and the medal ceremony. I called Marissa when I was in the back of the stand just before the medal ceremony. I said, 'I did it'. She was in pieces, as I was. Shit, this has really happened. The announcer was like, 'the medal ceremony for the triathlon'. We were just about to walk out when someone said, 'you can't take your phone' and took it off me. I didn't get it back for three days.
Docherty: I wasn't too sure whether I should be singing up there. I think Hamish was crying and I was just super happy. It was just a lot of joy for me to be up there listening to the New Zealand national anthem.
Carter: We had been in drug testing for two-and-a-half hours. We also did the press conference. Then we were driven across Athens to go on live TV with Paul Holmes. We were starving at that point and Nathan came back with about 10 Big Macs. We were so hungry.
Gemmell: They came back to the IBC with their medals. When they arrived, I went outside and gave them a hug. At those times, you can get a bit overcome with emotion. Bevan said, and it's something I will never forget, 'I couldn't have done it without you and you know you would have been there'. He didn't have to say it but I will never forget it.
Carter: The team haka was more special than the medal ceremony. You get back to the village and the team came out. They were there to celebrate your success. They all had their own performances to deliver and they took time out to celebrate yours. It's not just about your performance any more. It's what it means to everyone else. It's quite remarkable, really.
Docherty: One of the biggest issues for us was that, for some reason, alcohol was a banned substance at that particular Olympics for triathletes. We had no idea why. We got management onto the phone to try to clarify that as quickly as possible so we were able to celebrate and have as many drinks as we possibly could as soon as possible. We just wanted that restriction lifted so we could celebrate. And we certainly did.
Elliott: Alcohol was regarded as a performance-enhancing drug or a banned substance. [Chef de mission] Dave Currie came up and said he had spoken to someone and found out that wasn't going to be an issue post-competition. The boys didn't need alcohol. Success does that to you.
Carter: We went out that night. We had a couple of beers but you don't really need any. Going out is more about the fact you can't sleep and you are just buzzing. At that point it was over, and you can let go.
Elliott: We went out that night to the Heineken House. Hamish and Bevan were just buggered. After a while the boys came up and said it was time to go. We piled into a taxi. There were about six of us in there and the taxi driver had the Olympic medals in his hand as he was driving along the motorway back to the village.
Richmond: It wasn't about the gold medal for Hamish. It wasn't about the physical medal. We shared a room. Bevan went back and very carefully put his medal into the engraved wooden box and put it under lock and key. Hamish threw his medal on the bed. It bounced off and landed on the floor and stayed there for three days. For three days, the cleaners had to work around it.
Carter: I remember waking up the next morning and seeing it and it hit me that it had really happened. But it wasn't about the medal. It was about what I could look back on and think about that performance. The medal becomes who you are. You think you have this whole career, and you've done all these races, but suddenly you have this one race on this one day which defines you. That's both good and bad. If you consider that before the race, it would be so overwhelming, you would never race like that. You have to separate yourself from it.
Richmond: We were sitting on the balcony, sipping away on our Champagne. I said, 'that was f***ing awesome, mate'. And he was just fizzing, flicking his wedding ring. He was there but not quite there. He went, 'yeah, it was cool'.
Gemmell: I know Bevan made some mistakes. I don't think Hamish made one mistake. I'm not saying Bevan lost the gold but Hamish definitely won it. He did everything right on the day. He worked when he needed to, didn't work when he didn't need to. He raced the perfect race.
Carter: I don't think anyone could have beaten me on that day. It's a reasonably arrogant thing to say because if we had come back the next day and done it again it's highly likely someone would have beaten me. On that day, I don't think they could have.
The Aussie breakdancer on why she decided to call it a day.