Cleve Dheensaw, Canwest News Service

He sprinted to gold in the first Olympic men’s triathlon.

Refocused and rejuvenated, he heads to Beijing ready to swim, bike and run for the podium

Simon Whitfield
Born: May 16, 1975, Kingston, Ont.
Home town: Kingston, Ont.
Residence: Victoria
Height: Five foot nine
Weight: 154 pounds
On team since: 1994

Career Highlights:
- 2000 Olympic champion, becoming the first male triathlete to win a gold medal in triathlon at the Olympic Games.
- 2002 Commonwealth Games champion and 1999 Pan Am Games silver medallist.
- Finished in 11th place at the 2004 Summer Games.

In 2000, Simon Whitfield sprinted to the finish line in the shadow of the Sydney Opera House. It seems he has been trying to run out of it ever since.

The moment that has come to define him is both boon and curse. Ever since winning the inaugural gold medal in the men’s triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics, Simon Whitfield has had to live up to being Simon Whitfield.

It hasn’t always been easy.

There have been highs and lows, from gold at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games to 11th place at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics. For anyone else, 11th at the Olympics would be a credible result. Not, however, when your name is Simon Whitfield.

When Whitfield thinks back to 2000, it almost seems as if he’s talking about someone else.

"It seems like a lifetime ago. The whole experience was surreal. But every six months or so, something will spark a memory of Sydney."

Whitfield tells of reading an article recently about former U.S. Olympic champion swimmer Gary Hall Jr.: "For a moment, my mind was actually drifting and thinking about how great it was that this guy had an Olympic gold medal until I caught myself … ‘Wait a minute, I have one of those laying around the house, too.’"

That was the "other" Simon Whitfield who won that gold medal.

It was just after Athens four years ago — when he could no longer call himself the defending Olympic champion — that it really hit home that the world of Olympic sport waits for no one.

"My ego wanted to win at Athens and I remember it as a huge disappointment."

Now, one year into fatherhood and his career rejuvenated at age 33, Whitfield seems to have found himself again. He is fit, sharp and on-beam, and heads into the 2008 Beijing Games as a medal threat. Whitfield finished second in the world rankings in 2007 and his pre-Beijing results this season have been strong.

Whitfield has refocused and goes into Beijing as a medal contender.

Yet not without some controversy.

One of Canada’s most appealing and popular athletes, Whitfield has taken some hits on the road to Beijing — the only time he has done so in his career — because some believe he has used his influence to get Colin Jenkins of Hamilton on the three-member Canadian men’s triathlon team to act solely as a Whitfield pace rabbit.

Jenkins is very fast in the swim and cycling portions, but weak in the run, the final portion of the triathlon in which Whitfield is extremely swift.

The idea is to have Jenkins pull Whitfield in the swimming and the cycling portions to keep him in touch with the lead group. When the run starts, Jenkins will fall away like a booster rocket and Whitfield will zoom off from there.

The goal, Whitfield notes, is to land a Canadian on the podium in Beijing and this gives Canada the best shot.

"Triathlon Canada has invested a lot of money in all of us and the future is now when it comes to bringing home a medal and we have to go with what gives us the best chance."

The rake-thin Whitfield said he feels remarkably resilient and is good to go until London 2012.

"I absolutely love doing this … it’s my obsession … I started at 16, so I have now been doing this longer than I haven’t been doing it. I couldn’t imagine my life without swimming, cycling and running. But I don’t enjoy the Olympic year as much as I do the others in between. An Olympic year brings out the craziness in everybody, including myself."

Whitfield has been able to carve out a pretty good career financially in triathlon. For that, he makes no apologies.

"Sport is my job."

And he’s good at it. Even if it means having to out-run shadows from Sydney.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008