Tasmanian triathlete Jake Birtwhistle does not blame a farcical false start for a disappointing return from his maiden Olympic Games.
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More than four months after being caught up in arguably Tokyo's most chaotic moment, the 26-year-old is philosophical about the high-profile stuff-up which led to him finishing the race with a broken nose and well outside medal contention.
"In triathlon it's always driven into you to control the controllables," he said. "If something happens that you can't change, just get on with it. It's the thing I get asked about most. People will say: 'How was the Olympics?' and before I can answer they add: 'What about that boat in the way?'
"Nothing like that has ever happened before so of all the events to do it, it's the biggest one possible."
Speaking at length for the first time about the fiasco, Birtwhistle downplayed its role in his 16th-place finish but admitted it was hardly an ideal start to his Olympic career.
Controversially overlooked for the 2016 Games and then subject to the COVID-enforced postponement, Launceston's former junior world champion had been building up to July 26 for nearly a decade.
But as the 56-strong field awaited the starting gun, a media boat was still positioned in their path, prompting half of the competitors - including Birtwhistle - to dive in and begin the swim leg before a false start was eventually declared.
"It's pretty standard to have a boat come across with a film crew to get vision of everyone before the start," he said.
"I was on the far right so it passed me pretty early and I remember when they said 'On your marks' I could see the boat in my peripheral vision and was thinking 'Gee that feels like it's not out of the way yet.' As soon as the gun went, we're in the water and I'd completely forgotten about it, until 100 metres or so later and as we were stopped I thought 'Right, it wasn't just my eyes playing tricks'.
"We tried to take our time to swim back but we all had this nervous energy and when we got back we were straight back into it.
"It's a blind pontoon draw that you do a couple of days before but I had two friends either side of me on the start line. We kind of just looked at each other and said: 'Well, that was weird.'
"I remember thinking that my parents would be in hysterics about it. It didn't faze me all that much, but I remember thinking 'Mum's gonna be freaked'. Obviously, the family had all planned to be there and so to not be there and have to watch such a mess of a start on TV would be weird for them.
"You joke about how everything in Japan runs on time so probably the person on that boat wasn't a local and had been brought in for that event but the starter was a native Japanese person and they were like: 'Right, it's 6.30, we're going.'
"There were people on the left of the pontoon who dove in and as the boat tries to get out of the way it almost reverses straight into them and it could have gone so badly."
To add injury to insult, Birtwhistle then sustained a broken nose in the restart, but downplays the drama's impact on his eventual result.
"Both the one that was restarted and the actual start were two of the roughest I've ever had. It was a tactic of whoever was on the far right to cut across straight away to compact everything up and make it tough. My training partner next to me got a little bit in front and I got pushed back and I don't know if it was when I looked up to breathe but as he was kicking I copped a heel to the nose.
"There's so much going on you almost don't think about it much. But things like that happen and you forget them. By the time I crossed the finish line I'd forgotten about the boat at the start until I was asked about it in an interview.
"And it was the same with the nose, you just get on with it. I knew it was sore and I just felt really blocked up. I knew if I was feeling it in a race, it's probably bad.
"There's contact all the time in the swim but if you get hit normally a second later you're fine and forget about it, whereas this I was noticing throughout the rest of the race so I kind of knew it was probably worse than normal. An hour into the race when it was still sore I figured it was probably broken.
"I don't know how much of an effect the boat thing would have had at all. It was almost like we just did one more warm-up.
"If I was in a sprint finish for first and lost and the guy that beat me had not had to do the extra start then I probably would [feel aggrieved], but I was never really there. The things that affected my race were much bigger than either the boat or getting kicked in the head."