Matt Damon crossed the finish line in the Escape to Miami Triathalon as part of a team of three on Sunday.  Encouraged to participate to get into shape for his next movie by his brother, Kyle, Damon finished his 6.2 mile portion of the race in just under an hour.  Kyle Damon, who is training for the Ironman competition, finished the entire triathalon in 2 hours, 23 minutes and 40 seconds in 27th place.  Matt’s relay team, which included his stepfather and a family friend, both experienced swimmers and bikers, finished in 2 hours, 40 mintues and 56 seconds and his stepfather called Damon the team’s “weakest link.”

“I knew I was in trouble when the old guy with the oxygen tank passed me,” he joked.

Damon got into the race, he said, because, “‘I was doing this movie this summer The Informant where I had to put on all this weight, and my brother told me, ‘October 5, save the date.’ ”

Besides, he said, ”I’ve got to get in shape for the next thing I’m doing.”

[From People]

People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive got very unsexy for his recent role in The Informant where he played FBI informant Mark Whitacre.  Damon put on alot of weight and facial hair, the latter of which made him look eerily like Ned Flanders, and while the glasses and overstimulated mustache came off easily, the weight takes a little more work.  A fourth Bourne movie is rumored to start filming in the next year and Jason Bourne isn’t carrying any extra weight.  I’m still convinced Jason Bourne was really the Sexiest Man Alive, Damon just got it by default.

Though Matt and his family live in Miami, no one was expecting the Oscar-winning Damon brother to be running the last leg of the race, so the finish line observers were surprised to see the movie star.  Other runners were also a little star struck.

”I think I need to start running right now, too,” shouted competitor Maria Jimena Neveda as she watched Damon sprint out of the ”transition” area where Hetherington passed off the team’s ankle monitor to the star.

Damon spent a few minutes before his run posing for pictures with Neveda and her friends.

”I wish I could be running after him,” she said.

[From the Miami Herald]

Matt was met at the finish line by his wife, Luciana, and their new daughter, Gia, so it all would have been for naught, Maria.  Matt Damon would be a hell of a carrot on the end of a stick to chase to the finish line, though.

Matt Damon is shown arriving in NY on 9/26/08. Credit: DAVID KRIEGER/bauergriffinonline.com. He is also shown at the Clinton Global Initiative later that day. Credit: L. Gallo / WENN