August 18th, 2016 is a day that will live long in the memory of Corkman Bryan Keane. Though the day didn't go exactly as he'd hoped, he has fond memories of the whole Olympic experience and hopes by him competing he can inspire a new crop of triathletes going forward to the next Games in Tokyo in four years. (Photo: Morgan Treacy-Inpho)
By Brian Canty
Bryan Keane has relived the horror of seeing his dreams of a top placing at the Olympic Games disappear up the road and out of sight following a helmet malfunction in yesterday’s men’s triathlon.
The Corkman, 35, was exiting T1 after completing a very solid swim when the strap to fasten the helmet somehow got stuck in a vent on the top of the helmet.
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The seconds it took him to correct the issue allowed a clutch of riders escape up the road to commence the bike leg of the three-discipline affair and though he tried gallantly to reel them in, it wasn’t to be.
“I had a good swim out of the water and I was feeling good,” he told us from Rio this afternoon.
“We all have our names on our (wet) suits so you know who you’re around and I could see the names of the guys and I knew I was in a good position.
“And running into transition as well you can see by the amount of bikes where you are in the overall scheme of things by how many are still there.
Bryan Keane was in a race he was never likely to win but he said he will cherish the memory of the day for the rest of his life.
“I went to throw the hat and goggles in the box but initially I couldn’t get one side of the helmet in, it caught in a vent up top so I just struggled to clip it, I couldn’t get it clipped.
“I saw Richard Murray run past and I went ‘there’s my ticket’,” he added on how he could potentially work with the powerhouse South African to get back into the race which was already disappearing from view.
“Richard’s an unbelievable biker and I thought ‘I gotta get on, I gotta get on’ but I was out behind him out of transition.
“But it just didn’t happen,” he conceded.
“I went around a Puerto Rican and some other guy who got popped from the group and I knew if I didn’t get on by the top of the hill it was over but the hill is like the Muur de Huy,” he said, referencing the viciously steep climb used in Fleché-Wallone every April.
“It just goes crazy steep; you’re riding the same watts but you can’t close it.
“It’s not like a hill where you can be explosive and close it so over the top I watched him go down the hill and that was it.
“There’s nothing you can do, there was a guy Billington (from the US) I rode most of the laps with.
“The two of us were chasing, every time we’d go through transition we’d see the time gaps and see we were losing time and it’s a frustrating thing.
“But I’ll get over the result, I’ll be fine, I’ll move on, it’s just another race.”
The 35 year-old will rue the fact he had a slight issue with his helmet when it wouldn't close coming out of T1 and that cost him a place in the front chase group, a group he would never see for the rest of the race.
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Keane knew he was never going to win or challenge a medal but 40th wasn’t a fair reflection of his talent or effort over the last two Olympic cycles.
“For the last weeks, I’ve been at altitude training and at a camp in Florida and I knew I was in good form; my power numbers, swim times and run speed, everything was there and coming together really nicely.
“I was confident of being between 10th and 20th.
“It was a course that suited me and there was nothing I feared about it. That gave me more reason to be so relaxed, the work had been done.
“I ended up running 20th quickest but it happened that I lost all the time on the bike when only two of us were working; you can’t work against that sort of firepower.
“Had I gotten off with that group coming out of T1 I’d have been somewhere between 17 and 20 so personally, I’m disappointed.
“I didn’t get the result I’m capable of but in the same sense, whether I’m 12th or 40th nobody remembers.
“I made an Olympic Games and I’ve come back from some pretty shit things and that’s more so a story than the result.
“I’m realistic that I wasn’t going to compete for a medal but you still want to be competitive against your peers.
“The difference between 20th and 40th is very little so then it becomes a personal thing where I’d prefer to have been higher but it doesn’t change it.”
Keane is one of the most popular figures in the sport and his place in Rio was thanks, in part, to the huge support he received from Triathlon Ireland, including Aileen Reid, Marty Loughran and Tommy Evans.
He’s 36 tomorrow and knows he won’t and can’t go on forever, but he still plans to race in two weeks in France.
Getting to the Olympics was a massive thing for him personally but it’s the legacy of having Irish people at the Games is far more important, he reckons.
“It’s a big deal; how many go to the Olympics? It’s a select club and it means a lot to have the support of everyone.
“I’ll always have that (tag of being an Olympian) and nobody can take it away from me; I’ve went to the Olympics and represented my country at the highest level of the sport.
“It’s about looking ahead now to Tokyo in four years and the next guys coming through, there’s Russell White and a crop of juniors and you need to inspire them and see people competing like I did.
“They’ll have that ambition to be competitive and they’ll want to make an Olympics and that’s big thing.
“There’s a legacy that needs to continue on, the same with the track cycling; we had Shannon (McCurley) there for the first time.
“Okay it was disappointing we had no males and we only had one girl but we need to keep putting people into Olympic Games.”
And as regards his own immediate plans he said: “The plan is to continue racing, maybe not all the World Series events, maybe I’ll do half ironman racing but maybe go out and enjoy them a bit more and not chase rankings.
“The immediate plan is the same as this year, be as competitive as I have been in the past and as long as I’m injury-free and healthy, I’ll continue to race.”
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