David Ashdown's sports picture diary: Beijing Olympics - Triathlon

(DAVID ASHDOWN)

David Ashdown was in Beijing covering the 2008 Olympic Games

This picture of the men's triathlon would seem to be a very easy picture to get, but what you don't see is I'm shooting under a side screen with a gap of only about 18 inches, plus I'm not on my own! There must have been forty plus other photographers trying to get the same picture of the Chinese backdrop and action all in one. Another part of covering the Olympics that starts to show its self is fatigue.

Yesterday I went to the main stadium, then cycling, then had a mad dash back to the main press center on the media bus, then on to another bus to see the boxing. I got to bed at 1am and was up again at 6:20 the following morning to go to the triathlon. The bus there looked like the land of the living dead - but thats the Olympics. This is my seventh so I'm well aware what's required and I wouldn't have it any other way! Im just glad it's only every four years.

Picture taken on a Nikon D3, 70mm-200mm lens at 70mm, aperture F9.0, 1/640th of a second