POTTER’S JOY AT BRONZE IN TRIATHLON
EX-TRACK STAR CAME FOR GOLD BUT IS STILL SMILING
BETH POTTER said she had come for the gold, but was still elated to finish with a bronze medal around her neck.
Her achievement capped a remarkable eight years that began with her watching the Olympic triathlon on Copacabana Beach while drinking out of a coconut.
In Rio, the then physics teacher had used her summer holidays to run for Team GB in the 10,000m on the track. Stricken by sickness, she struggled to a lowly 34th and found herself disillusioned with her first sporting passion.
Inside McDonald’s at the Olympic village, she got talking to the GB triathlon coaches about a possible switch. She made an official decision when, a month later, she watched Alistair Brownlee carry his dehydrated brother Jonny over the line at the World Series final in Mexico.
“When Jonny collapsed and Alistair carried him across the line, I thought, ‘I want to do that sport’,” she said.
A year later, she quit teaching, and the former junior swimmer fully immersed herself into her new sport. She missed out on Tokyo selection, which bugged her at the time, but she now admits it would have been too soon.
She regularly trains with the Brownlee brothers in Leeds, and these were typical Yorkshire conditions to start with, after heavy overnight rain led to slippery roads. And Brownlee Sr was there in the stands, cheering her to a medal.
The build-up to the triathlon had been overshadowed by the fear of more Olympic sickness for Potter and her fellow triathletes, as the River Seine was repeatedly tested to see if it was safe enough to swim in.
Just 24 hours earlier, the levels of E.coli were too high, but come a final check at 3.30 French time this morning, it was passed fit for purpose. Olympic organisers were criticised for their decision to host the swimming in the Seine, which at one stage threatened to turn the triathlon into a duathlon, with the swimming set to be scrapped if conditions did not improve.
A world champion and winner of the test event in Paris, Potter was among the medal contenders alongside prerace favourite and Paris resident Cassandra Beaugrand.
Beaugrand had blitzed the world’s best in the most recent races in Hamburg and Cagliari. In her home city, she was among the leaders after the swim, was part of the 10-strong group at the front of the bike section, and finally went for home on the final lap of the 10km run to give France a sixth Olympic gold of these Games.
For Britain, the bronze for Potter, who was surprisingly beaten by Julie Derron, from Switzerland, took the medal tally to 13.
She said: “I’m so happy. I was going for gold, but Cassandra and Julie were just too good for me. But I’ve come a long way in eight years.
“I feel like I did it for me, but also for everyone that’s helped me in the past eight years and believed in me. My coaches told me to stay in the top five on the swim. I mainly stayed out of trouble and managed to stay upright on the bike. I dug really deep. I’m superhappy, it’s a bronze medal at the Olympics.”
Britain’s silver medallist from Tokyo, Georgia Taylor-Brown, has had a tortuous time since then. A calf tear had led to a lengthy spell on the sidelines and she only returned to competition in March.
Like Potter, she was in the top 10 after the swim and in that leading group on the bike. But once the run kicked in, her lack of race sharpness faded and she dropped back, finishing sixth. The third Briton in the field, Kate Waugh, struggled on the swim, but clawed her way back to 15th.
For Potter, it might not have been the gold she set out for, but bronze vindicated her journey.