By Kris Shannon in Paris
The battle between Hayden Wilde and Alex Yee for triathlon supremacy has become one of the most compelling individual duels in international sport.
But fans shouldn’t expect to see another instalment in 2025.
Wilde and Yee entered the latest enthralling chapter at the 2024 Olympics on Wednesday morning, trading leads in the run leg after a difficult swim and bike in demanding conditions in central Paris.
Unfortunately for the Kiwi, the result was the same as two years ago in Birmingham. Unlike the Commonwealth Games, however, the race was settled by the athletes rather than officials.
For that, Wilde was thankful, even if his friend and foe did reel in a 15-second deficit and run right by him with the finish line in sight on the Pont Alexandre III.
The pair embraced moments after securing the the top two spots on the podium, the culmination of a six-year relationship that began when both when budding athletes with big dreams.
Now 26, each man will surely be eyeing a third Olympic medal at Los Angeles in 2028. Before that, though, Wilde plans to expand his horizons.
“I did say whatever the colour was, I wasn’t going to come back, but I guess since it’s silver, I have to come back to LA,” Wilde said. “But I think I might take a year off within the World Triathlon Series and go up a class to 70.3 [half ironman].
“I just feel like it’s my home at 70.3. I can really show off my bike prowess and my run prowess at the same time.
“With the Olympic-distance stuff, there’s a lot of drafting – obviously it’s part of the sport – and I really just can’t show off my [abilities]. If I do too much work on the front of the bike, you pay for it on the run.
“So I’m going to give it a go on the long-course stuff for a little bit next year, but I think come back for the Comm Games – if there’s a Comm Games – and then come back for LA hopefully.”
Wilde, for once, was the beneficiary of drafting in Paris, with Dylan McCullough selflessly abandoning his own ambitions to haul his teammate back from a 30-second deficit on the bike.
After losing a little time in the second transition, Wilde soon caught and summarily passed Yee, quickly building a lead that still stood at 14s with 2.5km to race.
The Brit’s composure and kick were the primary factors in victory, while Wilde was left to rue a couple of small elements that became costly.
First, the rescheduling of the race – owing to poor water quality in the Seine – meant the start time moved almost three hours later, wrecking two months of careful planning and adding heat to the abundant challenges of the course.
And second, wanting his shoes as tight as possible to navigate cobbled streets, Wilde struggled to apply the footwear once his bike had been racked.
“That was the most thing I was frustrated about – I was getting up at 5.30 every morning for two months and going to bed at 7, and it’s really hard to do in Spain because it’s light till 10pm.
“But we’re elite athletes; we have to adjust to the circumstances. We just had to do what we could in the heat and I definitely did feel it in the last K. I felt real good until probably 2k to go.
“I was just depleted, I was gone, I was done. I had nothing left, and I just had to survive to get to the finish line.”
The Kiwi came agonisingly close to achieving survival but remained sanguine about the outcome, having played his part in another thrilling head-to-head tussle.
“I didn’t want to come here saying, ‘What if’. If I had stayed on him and just waited, it may have come down to a sprint finish, but also it may not have. I did all I could and I put him under pressure early, and that was the goal. I just didn’t have it and he was the better man today.
“It was actually really nice – Alex and I finally got a battle that we both deserve. There was no penalties, both of us finished and it was just a clean, fair race. I think that’s what we’re most proud of just between him and I – it was everything that we had dreamed of: a foot battle.
“We go back six years ago when we roomed up in Jersey for the Super League Tri. That was the first time I met him, and I think just being together with him on the podium eight years later, it was something special.”
Kris Shannon has been a sport journalist since 2011 and covers a variety of codes for the Herald.
Veteran Sam Cane is given his farewell test appearance.