Bryan Keane in Olympic action during the final leg of the triathlon in Rio; forever an Olympian.
Having missed out on qualification so cruelly at the London Games four years ago, Corkman Bryan Keane realised his lifelong ambition of becoming an Olympian in Rio today.
The Irishman may not have threatened for a medal in the men’s triathlon but his determination to qualify and go toe-to-toe with the giants of the game has won him admiration throughout the country and beyond.
A former racing cyclist who still races occasionally on the road with Team Aquablue; Keane made it into the top 55 triathletes in the world earlier this year and so qualified himself for Rio after a two-year process.
As expected today, the Brownlee brothers – Alistair and Jonathan – were on another level and they came home with gold and silver competing for Great Britain.
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Rounding out the podium was the South African Henri Schoeman, with Keane 40th of the 55 starters that made up one of the strongest fields assembled in the history of the sport.
@tri_ireland @tribryan on 'the hill' trying to bridge up. #?? pic.twitter.com/QAMj8oOVIU
— DAVID REID (@davyno1) August 18, 2016
Keane, who represented Ireland at cycling and rode the Rás on the national team before being lost to triathlon, was 38th after the 1.5km swim.
He trailed the first man out of the water Richard Varga of Slovakia by just 52 seconds.
But after a slower transition onto the bike than he would have liked he came out of the transition a little further down the field in 47th place.
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As a result he lost contact with the large chase group of athletes as it moved out of T1 and Keane was forced to spend almost all of the 40km bike course chasing with just US athlete Greg Billington for assistance.
Keane tackles the climb in a small group; an issue with closing his helmet having held him up at a crucial moment on the first transition (Photo courtesy David Reid)
"I just couldn't close the helmet and I had to watch as guys like Murray got away," said the 35-year-old.
"It was really frustrating because I got out of the water ahead of them.
"It's frustrating when you're aiming for the top 20. I ran the 21st best run split but the gap was too much."
From there he would hold his own, finishing the bike and going through the second transition out onto the 10km run in 45th place.
He moved up a little on that final leg and eventually crossed the line in 40th place in a time of 1:52:09, just over seven minutes down on the winner.
It was a really spirited performance from the oldest man in the field who said before the race he had persisted with the sport after suffering crash injuries before London because he didn’t want to live the rest of his life as “the nearly guy”.
He has certainly avoided that scenario and will forever be known as an Olympian; a magnificent achievement for the proud Corkman.
Thurs, Aug 18th: Rio Olympic Triathlon
1 Alistair Brownlee GBR 01:45:01
2 Jonathan Brownlee GBR 01:45:07
3 Henri Schoeman RSA 01:45:43
4 Richard Murray RSA 01:45:50
5 Joao Pereira POR 01:45:52
6 Marten Van Riel BEL 01:46:03
7 Vincent Luis FRA 01:46:12
8 Mario Mola ESP 01:46:26
9 Aaron Royle AUS 01:46:42
10 Ryan Bailie AUS 01:47:02
11 Richard Varga SVK 01:47:17
12 Crisanto Grajales MEX 01:47:28
13 Kristian Blummenfelt NOR 01:47:31
14 Alessandro Fabian ITA 01:47:35
15 Tyler Mislawchuk CAN 01:47:50
16 Andrea Salvisberg SUI 01:47:56
17 Ryan Sissons NZL 01:48:01
18 Fernando Alarza ESP 01:48:08
19 Sven Riederer SUI 01:48:15
20 Gábor Faldum HUN 01:48:20
21 Tony Dodds NZL 01:48:24
22 Irving Perez MEX 01:48:26
23 Joe Maloy USA 01:48:30
24 Ryan Fisher AUS 01:48:34
25 Pierre Le Corre FRA 01:48:36
26 Ron Darmon ISR 01:48:41
27 Vicente Hernandez ESP 01:48:50
28 Andreas Schilling DEN 01:48:56
29 Ben Kanute USA 01:48:59
30 Leonardo Chacon CRC 01:49:06
31 Igor Polyanskiy RUS 01:49:11
32 Dmitry Polyanskiy RUS 01:49:26
33 Tamás Tóth HUN 01:50:02
34 Davide Uccellari ITA 01:51:06
35 Joao Silva POR 01:51:33
36 Dorian Coninx FRA 01:51:50
37 Gregory Billington USA 01:52:04
38 Jelle Geens BEL 01:52:05
39 Rostislav Pevtsov AZE 01:52:06
40 Bryan Keane IRL 01:52:09
41 Diogo Sclebin BRA 01:52:32
42 Andrew Yorke CAN 01:52:46
43 Manuel Huerta PUR 01:53:22
44 Miguel Arraiolos POR 01:53:35
45 Gonzalo Raul Tellechea ARG 01:53:43
46 Lawrence Fanous JOR 01:55:05
47 Thomas Springer AUT 01:55:14
48 Luciano Taccone ARG 01:55:30
49 Ivan Ivanov UKR 01:56:00
50 Faquan Bai CHN 01:58:08
DNF Gordon Benson GBR 00:00:00
DNF Alexander Bryukhankov RUS 00:00:00
DNF Jason Wilson BAR 00:00:00
LAP Rodrigo Gonzalez MEX 00:00:00
LAP Hirokatsu Tayama JPN 00:00:00
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