This was no average Sunday in Brisbane.

It was Fathers’ Day across Australia. It was Day 5 of the grandest international sports festival ever to come to Brisbane – the Goodwill Games. And weather conditions were beyond optimal on this first weekend of spring in the Southern Hemisphere.

So when the world’s premier triathletes assembled along the south bank of the Brisbane River Sunday morning, there was no mistaking the anticipation hanging in the crisp air. It was a perfect day for underdogs. (TNT’s coverage airs Tuesday during the Primetime Show, beginning at 9 p.m. ET).

With an estimated 50,000 people lining thoroughfares and the Victoria Bridge, it was an especially good time to be an Australian. First to respond was Chris McCormack in the men’s triathlon. Though he was the sport’s world champion in 1997, McCormack’s recent performances have run the spectrum from back-of-the-pack to major contender. A year ago, he was not to be found in the field at the Olympic Games in his native Sydney.

He did not arrive in Brisbane to find his name on the tip of every tongue, not with Olympic champion Simon Whitfield of Canada here, or fellow Aussie and reigning world champion Peter Robertson lurking.

Yet despite a “bad swim” around the Brisbane River course (he was15th in the field of 22), McCormack came alive in the 40 kilometer cycling stage and pulled away at the end of the 10 kilometer run. Near the finish, with the crowds cheering, “I heard the commentator say I had a 100-meter lead … but I did not look back.”

Like McCormack, Brisbane native Loretta Harrop did not come to the Goodwill Games bearing the weight of expectation, as there was dominant American triathlete Siri Lindley, the recent world champion, and 2000 Olympic champion Brigitte McMahon of Switzerland to keep Harrop out of the bright lights. Overall, seven of the top 10 female competitors in the world went to the start line.

Harrop, the 1998 Goodwill Games and ’99 Worlds champion, clearly had no intention of fumbling a rare opportunity to triumph in front of her hometown audience. She was third out of the river and second coming off the bike, then moved quickly to the front of the lead pack when the race hit the road.

Smiling and raising her eyes to a brilliant blue sky, Harrop was not going to be challenged in the final strides and crossed the line in 1:59:44, into the waiting arms of her father. An American followed, but it was not Lindley. It was former swimmer Barb Lindquist of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Aussie Nicole Hackett was third, followed by Lindley and another American, Sheila Taormina.

“I felt the whole of Brisbane was behind me,” Harrop said. “The crowd really got me home.”

THE MOTHER OF ALL TRIATHLETES: Switzerland’s McMahon, the Olympic gold medallist who finished sixth Sunday, was competing in her first major triathlon since giving birth in May to her second child. Three months removed from that experience, McMahon merely shrugged when asked how she was able to participate so well so soon. “Luckily,” she said, “I was able to train right up until the day of birth, and I had no complications in the delivery.”

REALITY CHECK: Canadian Olympic Committee member Les McDonald, a guiding force behind the global triathlon movement, says he gathered Goodwill Games triathlon competitors for a pep talk before Sunday’s events.

“I told them to remember why we have the Goodwill Games, to remember, for those who were old enough, what a Cold War is like,” he was saying under a blinding afternoon sun. “And to realize that because of one person, Ted Turner, we have the chance to compete in a big TV event like the Goodwill Games.

“This is not just another race. We are here to celebrate peace. Regardless of what some people may think, sport doesn’t work without peace.”

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