Zimbabwean male triathlete Chris Felgate found the going tough in the men’s triathlon final yesterday after finishing a disappointing 52 out of the 55 athletes who took part in the race at Hyde Park in London.
Felgate, who was making his second appearance at the Olympics, got off to a poor start after completing the opening 1 500m swim leg in position 43 in a time of 18mins 52sec.
The 30-year-old triathlete’s fortunes got from bad to worse after he fell further behind in the second leg of the race — the 43km bike ride — where he dropped to last position after completing the leg in 1hr 19:02sec.
The South Africa-based athelete would, however, save face by overtaking Javier Quinchara from Colombia and Ho Min Heo from South Korea.
The only other triathlete behind Felgate was Canada’s flag-bearer Simon Whitfield, the Olympic champion at Sydney 2000 and the silver medallist at Beijing 2008, who crashed very early on the first lap and was forced to pull out.
Meanwhile, British star Alistair Brownlee became the first pre-race favourite to win the Olympic men’s triathlon gold medal yesterday.
Brownlee broke away on the run to beat Spaniard Javier Gomez by 11 seconds, while his younger brother Jonathan Brownlee won the bronze medal
