Canadian triathlete keeps head up despite crash
RIO DE JANEIRO — Andrew Yorke had tears in his eyes, scrapes and bruises on his body, and barely any voice for what he wanted to say.
“You work your whole life to get here to have the race of your life and you don’t quit,” he said, trying to keep his composure as his lower lip trembled.
“I didn’t quit. Ever. That’s why I’m here.”
Yorke, of Guelph, Ont., was one of two Canadians to compete in the men’s triathlon at the Olympics Games on Thursday and he wound up 42nd of 55 competitors.
Just finishing the race was a major accomplishment, however, after he crashed during the cycling portion, blew a tire, and scraped up the entire right side of his body.
“The sport is cruel man,” he said. “There’s nothing crueller. It’ll break your heart.”
Yorke was on a downhill during the 40-km cycle and was trying to conserve energy when he heard a crash a few bikes in front of him.
With no time to react, he had to guess which direction to go and wound up hitting the tire of the fallen bike and went down immediately.
He was able to get up, run with his bike to the next wheel stop, get a new wheel and continue on, finishing ahead of 13 riders with a time of 1:52.46.
“I’ve only crashed twice in my professional career so it sucks that it happened here,” he said.
“I just put my head down and rode the bike as hard as I could and I was just thinking of Canada. You’re never going to win after a crash. At that point you know your race is over.”
Canada’s other competitor in the race — which was won by Great Britain’s Alistair Brownlee for the second straight Olympics — was Tyler Mislawchuk of Oak Bluff, Man. He finished 15th, a strong result for the youngest competitor in the field.
“I’m happy with the effort,” said Mislawchuk, 21. “I gave absolutely everything I had. It’s hard to take in right now. It’s a big emotional build-up and I’m just happy to be done the race.”
Mislawchuk was 19th after the 1.5-km swim and had a good transition to start the cycling portion in 17th. He was just behind the lead group when he started the cycle but he was never able to catch up, instead spending much of the middle portion of the race as the lead rider of the second pack.
He dropped to 24th after the 40km cycle but made up considerable ground in the 10-km run, rising to 15th with a time of 1:47.50, two minutes and 49 seconds behind the gold-medal winner.
“It’s the Olympics,” Mislawchuk said. “I didn’t want to sit back and run for 20th place. I wanted to put it all out there and that’s what I did.”