Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee will be racing for gold in Paris. Photo / Getty Images
Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee will be racing for gold in Paris. Photo / Getty Images
Hayden Wilde thinks he knows how to “crack” his great triathlon rival – and the River Seine may guarantee the chance to prove it.
The Kiwi was this week named to race at his second Olympics and potentially add to the bronze medal in Tokyo that surprised the public but not the man himself.
Wider expectations are now very different for Wilde, who spent the past three years building a reputation as one of the world’s best while regularly battling friend and foe Alex Yee.
The Briton was labelled by Wilde as “the hot favourite” heading to Paris and it would be no surprise if Yee did indeed advance a step on the podium following the silver he won in 2021.
A year later, Yee collected Commonwealth Games gold in controversial circumstances, after Wilde had been handed a 10-second penalty that Triathlon NZ would unsuccessfully appeal.
That penalty – awarded when Wilde was adjudged to have unclipped his helmet too quickly in transition – denied fans the treat of a sprint finish in Birmingham.
Based on the pair’s recent form, that thrilling finale could well be seen on the Pont Alexandre III bridge in central Paris on July 30, and Wilde believes he holds an edge.
“I know the swim-bikers are going to do everything in their power to keep away from us,” Wilde said from his altitude-training base in the Andorran alps. “But if it does come down to that, and if both of our legs do turn up, I feel like the public are going to be treated to some battle.
“I feel like I know what I need to do to crack him. We’ve raced each other enough to know our strengths and weaknesses now and I’m just really looking forward to racing him on the big stage.
“We’re so close as athletes and in performances; it’s just mentally who can sustain the pressure of an Olympic Games.”
Wilde’s confidence is justified. In April he set a new 5km personal best of 13m 23.9s – a few seconds better than Yee’s fastest time – and while that came on the track, Wilde described the run leg in Paris as essentially a straight line.
The 26-year-old is also right about the rest of the field being determined to separate themselves before the run. Last month at a race in France, as Yee took advantage of Wilde’s puncture to cross first, the duo’s splits of 13m 29s and 13m 26s were 20 seconds quicker than those who trailed in their wake.
Such supremacy is enough to make their competitors pray for rain.
Before they bike down the Champs-Elysees, the triathletes are set for a 300m dip in the Seine, where recent poor weather meant the water was deemed unsafe for athletes. Tests by a monitoring group showed elevated levels of E. coli, and although organisers remained steadfast in the prospects of staging a full race, more rain could reduce the event to a duathlon.
Wilde is ambivalent about that outcome. There is no doubt he and Yee will benefit from ditching the swim leg, giving the pair no time to make up across their stronger two disciplines, but the title of Olympic triathlon champion may ring hollow.
Tokyo medallists Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee are good friends and rivals. Photo / Photosport
“It would suit me very well but I don’t know if I would let it stick mentally,” Wilde said. “As much as it suits me, I really want it to be a triathlon because I just feel like you get a bit cheated out of the race.
“I’ve just been purely training for a triathlon. People have asked whether you change your training heading into potentially a duathlon, but personally, I want to be an Olympic champion as a triathlete — not as a duathlete.
“So I’ve just been blocking the headlines from all that sort of stuff. We swam in it last year and I don’t think anyone was sick. It’s unfortunate there’s been some bad weather but they’ve got really good protocols in place to make sure we’ll have a swim. I’m pretty confident in the processes around that.”
If the water quality does improve, Wilde and Yee have another couple of obstacles to overcome before they can dream of sprinting for gold.
There is the small matter of reigning Olympic champion Kristian Blummenfelt, the Norwegian who outran both his younger rivals in Tokyo, while Wilde was also wary of the hometown French trio.
But after having a hunch he was a genuine medal contender three years ago, most observers’ premonitions for Paris see the Kiwi and Yee battling for the top spot.
“Heading into Tokyo, I knew if the stars aligned I could have a pretty special day, and it was just one of those days when everything came together and I was super happy,” Wilde said.
“Coming into Paris, I feel like a lot of people are saying, ‘You must be a lot more nervous, you must feel like you’ve got a lot more pressure’. But I feel like I’m in one of the best positions as I could possibly be in as a favourite.
“Kristian is coming back as the Olympic champion, I think Alex is on paper the hot favourite coming into this one – so he’s got the pressure of that – and we’ve got three French world champions coming into this race and they’ve got the weight of the nation bearing down on them.
“I just feel like I’m in a really nice position physically and mentally coming into this one. Not too much pressure is weighted over my shoulder at the moment. I think that just comes down to where I am as an athlete.”
