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Cycling crash doesn't deny Whitfield triathlon glory
SYDNEY, Sept 17 (AFP) - Canadian Simon Whitfield wasn't prepared to let a crash on the final lap of the cycling throw him off course en route to the gold medal in the inaugural Olympic men's triathlon here Sunday. The 25-year-old was briefly felled but climbed back aboard his bike and chased down Stephan Vuckovic of Germany in sight of the Opera House to win by 13 seconds in 1:47:45 - an exceptional time for this tough Olympic course - with Jan Rehula of the Czech Republic picking up the bronze. "I didn't come off hard, I just put my foot down and skidded along for a bit," he said. "I felt great getting back up and did what I had to do - I yelled at something at someone but it wasn't a huge drama. "Everyone just got backed up and there was a collision but the pack had slowed down to prepare for the changeover so I didn't lose any ground." But he admitted his thoughts flashed briefly to team-mate Carol Montgomery, who was forced out of Saturday's women's race in a similar accident. "I was so sad when Carol went down - when I saw the swimming I thought she was sure to win," he said. Whitfield therefore followed in the footsteps of Switzerland's Brigitte McMahon, an equally unheralded knife-edge winner of that race but he conceded afterwards he thought he might have to settle for silver. "He (Vuckovic) was running so well and I couldn't respond on the downhill section," said Whitfield, born in Kingston, Ontario and a resident of Victoria, British Columbia. "It was tempting to settle for the silver medal so I had to convince myself the race wasn't over yet. "Canada had a tough day yesterday and I was thinking what this would do for the rest of the team - the water polo, the hockey and the rowers. "I just thought to myself how much I owed it to Canada to get the gold - I wanted to hear my anthem." The man who names as his hero New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary - with Sherpa Tensing one of the first two men to climb Mount Everest - gave much of the credit for his victory to Australia. His father is Australian and he went to school in North Sydney and holds dual nationality. "Australia taught me about competitive spirit and pride," he said. "I'm deeply enamoured with the whole Australian culture - a lot of my competitive nature comes from my schoolfriends and training partners here. "I've always wanted to be the best in the world at something - if it was tiddly-winks I would have done that." Vuckovic, who grabbed a German flag in the home straight and had time to celebrate with the crowd before actually crossing the finishing line, was delighted with his silver medal. "At the start of the run the leaders were very slow and I was able to move up the field - I could not understand why they were so slow," he said. "I had such a bad swim that I thought I was out of the race. I thought to myself forget it, this is not your day. "I knew he (Whitfield) would beat me in a sprint finish - with 500m to go I saw him four metres behind me and I said 'okay, goodbye.' "But I'm happy to lose to Simon - he is a very good friend." As they began the final discipline - the 10km run - Vuckovic and Whitfield were placed 17th and 24th respectively, more than a minute behind the breakaway leaders, world champion Olivier Marceau of France and South Africa's Conrad Stoltz. At one stage Marceau held a 26-second lead and was still at the front at the start of the last lap but in the gruelling final stages the lead pair faded and were cut down by the fast finishers in the chasing pack. World number one Dmitriy Gaag of Kazahstan finished just out of the medals in fourth place with Ivan Rana of Spain fifth. Diving into the chilly harbour water, Australian Craig Walton hit the front immediately in a bold attempt to stretch the field, opening up a 10-metre lead over the pre-race gold medal favorite Simon Lessing of Great Britain with New Zealand's Hamish Carter, the world number two, also prominent. Divers with electrical shark repellers again rode shotgun to quell any lingering fears of a shark attack as they swam across Farm Cove in choppy conditions far less inviting than those the women encountered a day earlier. Lessing hauled Walton back in the later stages of the 1500m long sector and was right behind the home favorite as they were the first to climb aboard their bikes, in the shadow of the Opera House. The triathlon - a three discipline event with a 1500m swim, a 40km bike ride and a 10km run - is making its bow as an Olympic sport at Sydney.
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