Olympic agonyfor Aileen

Aileen, who lives in Lisburn and trains with Maryland Wheelers Cycling Club and Lisburn Swimming Club, was one of many competitors who found themselves crashing on the slippery surface as rain had left London’s roads treacherous in places.

In an example of how sport can be cruel sometimes, Aileen’s Olympic dreams came tumbling down close to Buckingham Palace with a crash on the first lap of the cycle.

But Aileen has guts.

She picked herself up off the road in front of Buckingham Palace, got back on the bike and completed her first Olympic triathlon in 43rd place almost eight and a half minutes behind the winner Nicola Spirig from Switzerland who beat Swede Lisa Norden in a photo finish.

Afterwards, blood dripping from the open wound on her left forearm that required a number of stitches, an emotional Morrison explained: “I thought I was doing okay. As I got out of the water I saw that Nicola (Spirig) was in front of me and you don’t want that. You want Nicola to be behind you because Nicola’s the golden ticket.

“I did everything in my power to get going and as I came around Buckingham Palace on the first lap I came down. It started happening in slow motion, I could see my bike slipping from under me.”

She went on: “I thought, if I can stand up and swing my leg over my bike I’m going to keep going and I swung the leg over, clipped in and kept going. The road was slippy, my bike wheel just came out and I slid along the road.”

When Morrison remounted she looked around for help to get back to the leading group but the various tactics of other countries counted against her.

“A group came around and I caught on to the group and that was a bit of a slow bicycle race. Daniella Ryf from Switzerland didn’t want the American Gwen Jorgensen to catch up with the group and didn’t want me to catch up with the group so I was basically doing everything I could on my own, so basically it was a 40km time trial totally on my own.”

Morrison couldn’t hide her anger. “I don’t mind saying that to any of the other girls; they hung me out to dry. I wasn’t here and didn’t spend four years training to take it easy sitting at the back of the third pack to cycle round. I put in everything I could for the other seven laps but on the second lap Kathy Tremblay came down. She bounced off the ground, it looked pretty sore to me but I went around her. That split up the group again and there was no chance of anyone catching up again.”

Morrison wasn’t about to throw in the towel, however, despite how hurt she was.

She battled on to the finish and it wasn’t the end to her Olympic race that she wanted but Morrison proved what a resilient athlete she is.