🤯 Phoebe Carter took a phone call on Monday evening. Without much time to think, let alone pack, she was in a car driving to France on Tuesday morning. By Wednesday she was standing in Quiberon contemplating a World Triathlon Championship Series start list with her name on it.
This was not the plan.
The 22-year-old was in Banyoles, Tri NZ’s European training base in northern Spain, working through a block that had Wels, Austria (June 27) and Holten, Netherlands (July 4) as the target races — World Triathlon Cup events, a level she has yet to compete at but one that made logical sense as the next rung. The rung after that, the WTCS, was a conversation for another time.
Then Eva Goodisson’s right foot had other ideas.
A bad blister put the Gold Coast-based Kiwi’s participation in doubt and Tri NZ needed cover in Quiberon for Sunday’s Mixed Relay, the first in the LA28 qualification window.
Carter had made clear she was available if the situation arose. The call came and she gladly accepted. And when a space opened on Saturday’s individual sprint start list, a travelling reserve became a WTCS debutant.
“It feels kind of a bit unreal,” Carter told SBR-Tri.com of her impending debut at the sport’s top tier, against the best in the world, in France, a triathlon hotspot, when she thought she’d still be training in Spain.
“Definitely came a bit sooner than expected. Not really having gone through Conti Cups to WTCS [via World Cups] is a little bit mind-blowing, but I guess, you know, I’m here now, and when an opportunity comes up, I feel like you just got to take it and do the best you can.”
The honest truth is Carter has barely experienced the level two steps below WTCS. Her World Triathlon profile lists just 14 starts and three of those were U23 races incorporated into elite events. So make that 11 starts with 11th (and second U23) at Oceania Sprint Championships in Napier on March 1, U23 bronze at April’s Oceania SuperSprint Championships at Runaway Bay and 10th at the Oceania Standard Distance Championships in Devonport among the highlights. Coached by Mark Elliott and a recent training buddy for double Olympian Ainsley Thorpe in Cambridge, Carter’s most recent race was a DNF at Asia Cup Taizhou en route to Europe.
“Yes, a bonus start like this can be daunting and I’m definitely going to be nervous before the race. But hopefully going to be able to be doing these races for a lot longer in my career…so really just going into it with no expectations, trying to not put too much pressure on myself.”
That’s easier said than done given her surname.
Hamish Carter won gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics, New Zealand’s first and only Olympic triathlon title. Mum and Dad have shaped the person Phoebe is and know better than most the kind of advice that works in unexpected moments like these.
“Dad’s kind of just said that it’s such an awesome opportunity and the best thing is you don’t have any pressure on you,” said Carter who will race in bib #54 of 55.
“You just need to go out there and race, you’re alright. So yeah, that’s kind of – that’s the plan at the moment.”
A recent run injury has meant her training block leading into Europe leaned heavily on swim and bike — which she says have seen “massive improvements” — and the strategy for Saturday reflects that reality: execute the swim and bike, hold form on the run, finish the race. Racing the field – complete with the likes of Cassandre Beaugrand, Tilda Månsson, Jeanne Lehair, Emma Lombardi and Georgia Taylor-Brown – is not the brief. Racing her own process is.
“Obviously with the field as it is, trying not to compare myself to these girls who have been racing for years [is key],” said Carter, after admitting the gravity of the call sank in the next morning – “I was kind of shitting myself a bit” – before she remembered Dad’s calming words.
“Just doing my own race and doing my own process that I’m still figuring out. No doubt I’ll learn heaps from this race, which is why I’m here.
“Kind of just gotta stay in the moment and go into it with an open mind and try to learn as much as I can. Yeah, it’s pretty cool experience to be able to be a part of.”
Carter had her own sage insight, mentioning the upcoming World Cups in Wels and Holten will all have the same elite names racing, just at events with a different badge on the tin. This is just a race. And the world No.130 will be alright regardless of the outcome.
This is a journey just at the beginning.
