Hamish Carter banishes the demons

Sportsmanship can take many forms. It could be a helping hand offered to a fallen rival; an admission that a catch had not been fairly held, even though everyone else around you assumed it had; or the acknowledgment that your golf ball moved a millimetre, which only the player had seen as he hunched over his or her stroke.

Or it could be picking yourself up out of the ashes of a broken dream, reapplying mind and body and turning despair into triumph, all achieved without the need of an ugly word or deed along the way.

So it is that the Herald's Sportsmanship Award for the year goes to Olympic triathlon champion Hamish Carter.

The Aucklander arrived at the Sydney Olympics four years ago as world No 1 in the gruelling multisport discipline. He had established himself squarely as one of the elite group of fancied contenders for the gold.

But it all went wrong.

Precisely why Carter finished 26th in the inaugural Olympic triathlon and not on the podium is down to several factors. The course was not designed with him in mind - the bike leg was too soft and played into the hands of the pure runners - and he was over-anxious and not mentally switched on.

It was a tough day, and pictures of Carter weeping with wife Marisa after the race figured large in the nation's newspapers the next day.

It was a critical time for Carter. He could have walked away, but decided to knuckle down and make amends.

He won bronze at the Manchester Commonwealth Games two years later and when he arrived in Athens, at 33 knowing it would be his final chance, he had a reputation as Mr Consistent, or the slightly unfair Nearly Man.

After all, his CV was loaded with seconds and thirds, he had more wins on the global World Cup circuit than anyone else and top 10 placings in all but two of his 12 world championships.

He had been world No 1, but on the biggest stages, the Olympics and world champs, there was no No 1 beside his name.

In the days before the Athens race, Carter spoke to fellow Olympian Sarah Ulmer, her gold medal in her suitcase, and to Marisa. "They said, 'Just do it. Just go and have fun. Do it because you love it'," Carter said.

"It just put me on the right track, settled me down and I decided I wasn't going to freak out or get nervous. That was the difference from Sydney."

The result was a red-letter day for New Zealand sport as Carter did everything right to hold off compatriot Bevan Docherty, the world champion, to give the silver fern a 1-2 finish.

Carter was 33rd of the 51 starters coming out of the 1500m swim in the Aegean Sea, but was quickest on the hilly 40km bike leg to be part of the leading group of six at the start of the 10km run.

Gradually the New Zealanders eased clear - with only Swiss Sven Riederer sticking with the powerful Kiwis - before Carter dug deep in the final 500m to burn off Docherty, crossing the line just over seven seconds clear with arms flung wide.

"I can't remember much. I kind of shut down when I crossed the line," Carter said minutes after his victory.

It was the third time New Zealand filled two of the rostrum spots at an Olympics. Peter Snell and John Davies were first and third in the 1500m final in Tokyo 40 years ago, and Blyth Tait and Sally Clark took gold and silver in the individual three-day event at Atlanta in 1996.

After the race, Carter's voice was breaking as he talked of his family, how much he was missing Marisa and their children, Phoebe and Austin. It was heartwarming stuff.

Triathlon NZ's high performance manager at the time, Mark Elliott, spoke of the double success being born of traditional values, hard work, commitment and sheer determination, rather than any financial incentive.

Given that four New Zealanders ended this year in the world top 20, Athens could be the start of a long and lovely relationship with the sport.

But whatever lies ahead, August 26, 2004, will always be Hamish Carter's day, when he banished four-year-old demons to write his name in New Zealand sporting legend.