Hero’s of the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Cozumel

With all the TV coverage and the snippets shown on all the news channels, Alistair Brownlee did do something very special that day that was indeed heroic when he abandoned his own excellent race prospects to help his brother Jonny. I think all sports fans around the globe have seen those remarkable few last moments of the ITU World Championships. I could not believe it as I watched and saw Jonny so clearly hitting that invisible wall, his head reeling, his eyes no longer focusing and his legs completely gone to jelly. Sportsmanship like that doesn’t happen that often and it was shocking and emotional in equal measure watching Alistair trying to support a near dead weight and keep his brothers legs moving up to that finish line, those last few metres must have seemed like miles.

 

The race commentators were immediately questioning if it was even allowed to almost carry an athlete to the finish. I bet that discussion goes on a while. Years ago in my second year in triathlon, Steve and I were called before the technical committee after a race in Swindon where I had caught up with Steve on a lapped run course. We had started in different waves but once we had contact we ran together for a while until one of us finished the run and the other went on to complete the course. There had been a complaint because I would win my age group and it was seen to be unfair that Steve was, so they said ‘Pacing’ me. They had checked the results and found that our run times were very close. Well they would be, they always were, we have always trained together and although Steve’s swim has always been better than mine and his bike nearly always better than mine our runs times however, even when we had gone off in different time wave starts were always very similar. That was Phillip Yarde as I recall, who gave us a bit of a dressing down and told us that Steve could not aid me to win my age group.  In the Nice race donkeys years ago Dr. Sarah Springman ran a few yards, near me along the promenade des Angles shouting the usual encouraging battle cry’s then dropped off after a few meters saying that she did not want to get me disqualified by running alongside. Yet in that same race a pair of twin French women did the entire race together, one having waited for the other in transition after the swim. When I mentioned that, since I had placed third behind them in my age group an official looked me straight in the eye and said, “But they are famous in France”. There always used to be a ‘no outside assistance’ rule but I guess if you are famous it is looked upon more kindly. I was invited on to the technical committee myself and went to a number of meetings which took a whole day of my life on each occasion before I decided that it was not for me. The rules have changed over the years and the elite of course have had different rules to age groupers. I won’t waffle on about the rules because my eyes start to glaze over.

 

 

 

The Brownlee brothers will probably take over from Julie Moss and her famous crawl to line in Hawaii  with their emotional finish. They changed the rules to make it illegal to crawl to the finish I think.

 

The race in Cozumel was as we have seen, very hot indeed, everybody among my friends on FB who went has said something along those lines. It was indeed the reason that I did not take the place that I had qualified for on the GBR team, being World Champion in my AG from Chicago, because I know that I am rubbish and a half when it is so hot. It seems like that was a good decision. There have been several occasions when I have suffered badly in the heat. In Pontevedra in north west Spain at the run lap turn around I had shouted for ice as I entered the stadium and they gave me a little poly bag full as I set off for the last lap. I put half a dozen cubes in my hat and one at a time in my mouth and managed to survive to the finish winning my age group after a disastrous bike ride where my gears got stuck and the route was up the mountain and down the mountain twice. Purely because of the heat, I have had a couple of rides back the finish in an ambulance in the past.

 

 

The following is another account of a Canadian athlete sacrificing his own good finish to help a woman on the GBR team who was in trouble because of the hot conditions. It is a message of thanks from the young woman’s father. 

 Samantha Rose here with hero 692 Britton of Canada.

When we met in the grandstand at the men's elite final yesterday, little did we know the pure theatre that would follow with the collapse of Jonathan Brownlee, so close to the finish line and the re-writing of the race script. Earlier in the day, my daughter Samantha had competed in the age-group championship 25-29 yrs. She had had the fastest swim and fastest cycle of any in her group and had a clear lead over the second competitor, her friend and fellow UK athlete Emma Deary, with just 400-500m to the finish line, when the heat took its toll - just as it would on Jonathan Brownlee a few hours later. At this point, a Canadian competitor named Britton, number 692, sacrificed his race time to assist Samantha. She was losing her orientation and having difficulty in standing unaided. Britton supported her and tried to walk her to the finish. When Deary appeared ahead of my daughter at the final roundabout, where I had been watching the race, I knew that something must have gone wrong with my daughter's race and walked down the course to find Britton helping Samantha. I offered to take over her care (I am a medical doctor myself - Samantha is a dentist doctor in the Royal Air force in the UK - as is evident from her running kit). Britton reluctantly lowered her to the ground to finish his race. At the time, we hardly had time to express our thanks to him. Samantha was cooled with water and ice, and shaded from the sun, and after 40-50 minutes, had regained her orientation and sufficient strength to stand unaided. After a few faltering steps along the kerb, she seemed to gain more confidence in her balance and, astonishingly, with 300m to go (and against my advice) she broke into a run and completed the race. That was more drama than I had expected from the race and my immeasurable relief to see Samantha recover was everything for me. For her, the hoped for triumph had disintegrated into disappointment, but we both remain extremely grateful to Mr Britton for sacrificing his race time to assist her. His remarkable selflessness and kindness to my daughter is something I will never forget and I would appreciate it if you would pass this email and photograph on to the Canadian Team Manager so that Mr Britton can receive a more formal expression of our thanks. Team Canada should be proud of this athlete and ambassador for Triathlon and sport in general. Thank you again for offering to pass my thanks on to Team Canada. With best wishes. John Rose

 

 

My husband Stephen with Julie Moss in Hawaii a few years ago. He got very emotional about meeting her.