As she crossed the finish line in last place, an emotional Paula Findlay kept repeating the same two words.
"I'm sorry." It was a heartbreaking end to the Victoria-based triathlete's Olympic debut.
She won't be going home with a medal, but the 23-year-old will be remembered for her gutsy performance. Despite being more than 12 minutes behind winner Nicola Spirig of Switzerland, Findlay refused to drop out, saying she felt she owed it to her supporters to finish.
As she approached the finish line to enthusiastic cheers from the crowd in Hyde Park, the tears flowed behind her red wraparound sunglasses.
Once she was done, the emotions took over as she crouched down, her head in her hands.
"I just want to apologize," she said after the race. "I feel terrible. I'm really sorry to everybody to sa国际传媒. I had big hopes for myself and a lot of people had big hopes in me."
A hip injury prevented Findlay from entering any pre-Olympic races this year but she said her hip was "100 per cent" on Saturday.
"It feels really good," she said. "I wish I would have had more time to prepare."
She said she's only been able to run for the past two months.
"I guess my fitness is not quite there," said Findlay.
"I don't know what happened, the Olympics are crazy."
She's right about that. The race ended in a thrilling photo finish with Spirig edging Lisa Norden of Sweden to claim gold.
The two women were given the same time of one hour 59.48 seconds but Spirig was declared the winner. Erin Densham of Australia took bronze.
Like Findlay, Kathy Tremblay of Pincourt, Que., had a disastrous day, dropping out of the race after crashing on her bike. She wanted to continue but was forced to abandon the race due to technical problems.
"I had to get back on my bike, it didn't work out," she said. "The chain wasn't going forward but I wanted to finish the race."
