Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 7:37 PM

Australia's triathletes say they are disappointed with their results in the Olympic men's event.

German Jan Frodeno outlasted 2000 Olympic champion Simon Whitfield in a sprint finish in the final run leg to take gold in the race at the Ming Tomb Reservoir.

Whitfield looked set to wrap up his second Olympic gold before Frodeno mowed him down in the final stages to cross the line in a time of 1 hour, 48 minutes and 53 seconds. Whitfield took silver just five seconds behind and New Zealander Docherty took bronze.

Australian hopes Brad Kahlefeldt and Courtney Atkinson, who were looking to match the efforts of Emma Snowsill and Emma Moffat yesterday, finished in 16th and 11th respectively.

Atkinson finished 1:16 off the pace and Kahlefeldt was a further 26 seconds back.

Atkinson says it was a strong field and anyone had a chance of winning.

"Even the guys who placed in front of me and behind me, they were guys that I probably would have said were shuffled back or forth, or, you know, wherever," he said.

"Don't get me wrong, I would have liked to be up further toward the pointy end of the field. But at the same time, it was a great experience. I walk away and it's still been .. it's all good and I'm proud of what I did."

Kahlefeldt says a persistent hip injury flared during the cycle leg and dogged him throughout the race.

"It is disappointing when you know you're capable of doing more with 100 per cent preparation, with no problems, but unfortunately this preparation was dogged with a hip injury," he said.

"But I've done my best job I could under the circumstances and I'm pretty happy with that."

Four athletes - Frodeno, Whitfield, Docherty and world champion Javier Gomez - were together with 250 metres to go, before Canadian Whitfield and Frodeno broke clear.

"I think I slept about two hours last night," Frodeno said. "I knew I had trained very well but these guys who were with me at the front were really the big guys."

"I just tried to execute my own race. As Simon went I knew it was going to be tough, I just had to bite and fight.

"This year I've lost all my races on sprints. It teaches you a lesson and I've learned at the right time I guess."

Commonwealth champion Kahlefeldt and Atkinson were inside the top 10 coming into the final 10-kilometre run leg, but could not keep pace with the leaders and finished outside the medals.

Spain's Gomez, nicknamed the "Tiger Woods of triathlon", was the hot gold medal favourite after dominating the sport for the past two years, but could not keep up the pace when Whitfield broke away.

He finished 20 seconds behind Frodeno in fourth place.

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The 194cm Frodeno was nobody's pre-race tip, entering with a relatively modest record including 13 top-10 World Cup finishes and last year's German national title

But he put on a devastating burst of speed to run down Whitfield with just metres left and leave Gomez and Docherty trailing.

The four had been neck-and-neck entering the stadium but world champion Gomez faded at the final turn, dashing the Spaniard's hopes of a first Olympic medal.

Earlier, Russia's Alexander Bryukhankov led out the swim but it was New Zealander Shane Reed who landed first and made it through the transition followed by Frederic Belaube of France with Gomez not far behind.

Luxembourg's Dirk Bockel and Axel Zeebroek of Belgium broke away on the bike leg and established a lead of nearly a minute on the favourites going into the run.

Their advantage was chopped to just 20 seconds by the end of lap one and it disappeared entirely in the next lap as Gomez and Spanish team-mate Ivan Rana hit the front.

The smart money was on Gomez, 25, who has four World Cup victories this season after winning the series for the past two years running. He also won last year's World Cup race on this course.

But the expected surge never came as he was tracked all the way by Frodeno, Whitfield and Docherty, and ran out of steam at the last.View historical results for the men's triathlon.