"My career was focused on Sydney. I was going to win that race. My whole life's work was going to come to fruition."
Carter said he stood on the Sydney start line, "an absolute total mental milkshake.
"I dived in the water, it went through my head - oh my God, I'm having a total shocker.
"I had all these sponsors at home, all this stuff, kind of swirling around inside my head."
Carter finished in 26th place. It was the worst day of his life.
"I sat there, I couldn't believe what had happened."
But that was the grounding for his future success.
"If you think success is winning, standing on a podium, you're looking at the wrong place.
"If you are going to try and achieve something truly exceptional, you are going to fail over and over again.
"I put [the goal] to one side. I'm heading to Athens, my goal is over there, I know it's there, but I'm focused on the process."
Carter said this process was extremely liberating.
"You stop thinking about stuff you have no control over."
He carried this philosophy to Athens in 2004, but it wasn't a perfect science.
Three days before his race, his friend, Sarah Ulmer, won the gold medal.
It brought home what he was about to do.
The night before the race, he couldn't sleep.
"I'm an absolute wreck, I'm completely back to square one.
"I called my wife in New Zealand, I completely broke down, I couldn't talk.
"She's like, 'what they hell and have you gone and done? Have you had an affair or something?'"
Carter said the the goal, the "bear", had jumped on his back. He got off the phone, composed himself, wrote a list of all the things that worried him - and then screwed it up and threw it into the bin.
He said he had a feeling of being completely free.
The morning of the race, he stood there in the sun in Athens.
"I said, right, here I am. I don't know what's going to happen - that's the reality. The result is off the table. I have my bike, my gear, six or seven things. Let's get those going."
The younger Bevan Docherty was considered the favourite, and it looked like that could pan out when Docherty emerged from the water in 17th position, Carter in 33rd.
It all changed in the bike ride, with the pair edging into the top six.
With the run, it was down to four. Carter remembers the last 800m.
"It was Bevan and I, and Bevan did this surge, and I went with him.
"Bevan said something like: 'Hey man, we have dropped these other two. We are going to get a medal.'
"I thought, freaking heck, I can't believe his ability to talk right now."
Carter went faster, saw the finish tape, and for the first time thought: I really want to win this race.
"My goal came back to say hello."
He finished eight seconds ahead of Docherty.
Looking back, he knows that if his "shocker" in Sydney had not happened, he would not have succeeded in Athens.
"If you have a mental model of what success looks like, and it doesn't quite fit with what you are, it can push you away.
"Have you got the ability, the courage to let go, and just focus on the things that matter."
