Tim Don, Britain's Top Triathlete

Tim Don is Great Britain's number one triathlete and our best hope for a medal in the 2008 Olympics. During the build-up to the Olympic games and the preceding events, Tim will give his views on his progress and the build-up to Beijing.

As a junior, Tim was soon marked out for great things. His swift and easy running style made him ideally suited to take his place in the new wave of triathletes who used their pace in the third discipline to distance their cycling and swimming peers.

Tim quickly gained a reputation for being one of the bravest emerging talents, often attacking from the front on the bike to stir up the action but his willingness to take races by the scruff of the neck often left him staring at silver medals rather than gold, as more canny rivals took advantage of his enthusiasm to split the field.

Silver at the 1998 European Junior Duathlon Championships was followed by another at the same season's European Junior Triathlon Championships before he became World Junior Triathlon Champion.

He made a successful transition to the senior ranks, featuring in 1999's ITU World Cup series but a bike crash that broke his wrist hampered his build-up plans for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. But Sydney was no disappointment, as Tim, still only 22, raced home in 10th spot, just one place behind his GB team-mate and pre-race favourite, Simon Lessing. After settling into life in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Tim set his sights back to the UK and the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games but a set of bizarre incidents derailed his progress again, the strangest being a pulled back muscle as he stooped to remove a stone from his shoe at the Stockton-on-Tees qualifying race. The Commonwealth Games would have to wait.

Tim would call his disastrous 2002 "the best thing that ever happened to me," as he reconsidered everything he had been doing up to that point. The biggest choice Tim made was to part company with his coaches and go it alone. It meant wheeling the Trek out of the garage and hitting the road. It was over those thousands of punishing training miles that the next phase of Tim Don's progress began to take shape.

Coaching himself and racing himself back to fitness with good results in Japan and Korea, Tim headed to the US at the end of the year for a crack at the World Duathlon Championships and astounded the experts when he and Greg Bennett ran away from a field containing the best duathletes on the planet. Television pictures of Tim chatting and laughing alongside the world's number one triathlete as they crushed the opposition are readily remembered by tri fans everywhere. Bennett was the next to feel Don's power, the young man from Hanworth racing away to a famous solo victory.

For 2003, Tim engaged the services of his old pal, the recently retired triathlon luminary Craig Ball as coach. The partnership was an instant success, with Tim's first ever ITU World Cup win at St Anthony's. Salford was a real test for Tim. He competed wearing a black armband in memory of his grandfather who had passed away just a couple of days before the race. His efforts to chase down the race-winning break endeared him to the massive crowd, but brought him only 4th place in reward. Now Tim was consistently finishing in the top five in big races, and his good form was confirmed when he was Great Britain's best finisher in the Athens Olympic trial.

Tim finished a disappointing 18th in Athens but was soon back to his best, winning the European Duathlon Championships before his best season to date in 2005. Victories in the All Africa Championships, Honolulu ITU World Cup, Madrid ITU World Cup, BTA National Duathlon World Championships, Corner Brook ITU World Cup and BTA National Championships set Tim up perfectly for the Commonwealth Games.

After the highs of 2005, Tim could have expected more from 2006. He just missed out on a Commonwealth medal but a second in the London Triathlon and ITU World Championship win saw him end the season well.

Tim enjoyed four victories, including the London Triathlon in 2007 and this year he has already started in fine form, winning the Western Province Championships, South African Championships, BG Tongeyong World Cup and BTF National Elite Sprint Championship. Things are really looking up!