By Mitch Phillips
LONDON (Reuters) – It is probably a little harsh to describe Beth Potter as an also-ran after she finished 34th in the 2016 Olympic 10,000 metres but, after a change of sport, she will line up for the 2024 triathlon when anything but gold will be a disappointment.
Potter, a physics teacher and part-time athlete when she ran in that extraordinary record-laden race in Rio, was named alongside Alex Yee as the first triathletes in the Paris Olympics British triathlon team on Thursday.
It was hardly a surprise given that Potter is the newly-crowned world champion and both athletes won the sport’s test events on the Olympic course this year.
Like many in the swim-bike-run sport, Potter was inspired by Britain’s Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonny, but it was not their brilliant gold/bronze and gold/silver performances in the 2012 and 2016 Games that grabbed her attention.
“Ironically it was watching when Jonny collapsed in Cozumel (the 2016 world triathlon series finale in Mexico),” Potter told reporters on Thursday.
“I just felt really inspired by Alistair picking him up and carrying him across the line and I thought ‘I want to do that sport’.
“It was just such a moment of sportsmanship and I was like, ‘I want to go to Leeds to train with these guys, how can I get there?’.”
Months later Potter, a decent swimmer in her youth, made the leap to triathlon and was indeed training alongside the Brownlees and a host of other British triathletes in what had become the sport’s epicentre in Yorkshire.
KEY ADVICE
Potter said the key advice she received from the brothers was to focus on consistency and to give herself time to develop in the new sport, where Britain have won more Olympic medals than any other country.
“It was just a case of doing little things right every day,” she said. “It was a big risk to give up my job but I’m so glad I did – it’s definitely paid off.”
That gradual build-up reached a crescendo this year with three world series victories and then the world championship title achieved with a brilliant performance in Spain.
Cleared of any qualification distractions after being named in the team for the Games, the 31-year-old Scot is free to finesse her Olympic path, believing she can become the first British individual women’s gold medallist in the sport.
“I’m one of the favourites and, ironically, winning that (world) title has taken the pressure off a little bit – just the fact that I know I can perform on a particular day,” she said.
Yee, 25, has already experienced the thrill of Olympic gold as he anchored his country to victory in the Tokyo Olympics mixed relay having also taken a superb silver in the individual event.
But, with those races taking place in front of a handful of people in the fan-free COVID-delayed Games, he cannot wait to go again in events that are likely to be some of the best-attended in Paris.
“I see Tokyo without crowds as a kind of transitionary period where I’ve experienced an Olympic games but maybe without the atmosphere and that’s made me really excited and hungry to get the whole experience,” he said.
“With France targeting the sport I think it’s going to be one of the exciting Blue Riband events of the Olympics.”
The other man in the victorious four-person relay team in Tokyo was Jonny Brownlee and, though he struggled for results this year, Yee said he would not be at all surprised to see the 33-year-old alongside him again next summer.
“I think you can never rule out a Brownlee around the Olympic Games,” he said – though Alistair has now moved on to Ironman distance. “They’re some of the best one-day racers we’ve ever seen.”
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ken Ferris)
