Simon St. Quentin Whitfield (born May 16, 1975) is an Olympic triathlon champion from Canada. He has dual Canadian and Australian citizenship. He was born in Kingston, Ontario.
As a young boy he played soccer but at age 11 began triathlon and by age 15 was pursuing it on a serious competitive basis. Whitfield’s gold medal win in the triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia is one of the most memorable performances by an individual athlete ever.
Whitfield got up off the ground after he and 14 other riders crashed in the bike race portion of the event and worked his way back near the leaders. In the foot race, he resolutely cut down the field one at a time then put on a brilliant finishing kick to take the victory. His final time was 1:48:24.02, which still (as of 2008) stands as the fastest Olympic triathlon.
In the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England he claimed gold again. He ended up in 11th place at the 2004 Summer Olympics with a time of 1:53:15.81.
Whitfield was named to the 2008 Summer Olympics team and won a silver medal while competing at his third consecutive games.[cite news|url=http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=240172&lid=sublink05&lpos=headlines_main |title=Whitfield headlines trio named to triathlon team|accessdate=2008-06-09|date=2008-06-09|author=The Canadian Press|publisher=The Sports Network] With a time of 1:48:58, he finished 5 seconds behind the German gold medalist. [cite news|url=http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=246836&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_olympics |title=Whitfield Wins Silver in Triathlon, Germany Takes Gold|accessdate=2008-08-19|date=2008-08-19|author=The Canadian Press|publisher=The Sports Network] Whitfield's accomplishment was made even more impressive considering he was a distant fourth behind the lead three runners heading into the final kilometre of the run before he burst forth into the lead with 200 metres remaining. Whitfield, exhausted by his effort to get back into the lead, was then passed by the eventual winner Jan Frodeno of Germany at the end of the race. [cite news |title=Roll call: Canada's medal winners |url=http://sports.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/beijing2008/cp_cbc_beijing.aspx?feedname=cbc-sports-v3&showbyline=true&newsitemid=olympics-canada-medals&pagenumber=3 |work=MSN Sympatico |date=2008-08-23 |accessdate=2008-08-23] ]Whitfield lives on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.
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