By Kent Gray/Triathlon.kiwi
The results sheet says silver. Every other measure screams champion human being.
Hayden Wilde upgraded his Tokyo bronze for a Paris silver that was golden until it wasn’t, a herculean effort and calculated gamble eclipsed only in the final, excruciating 200 odd metres by his great British rival Alex Yee.
Wilde thought he might just about have delivered New Zealand a second gold medal of the XXXIII Olympiad but it was not to be.
“I got beaten by a better man,” he said humbly afterwards. It was only the beginning.
Indeed, it was what happened after one of the all-time great Olympic triathlon races that put a true silver lining on Wilde’s gritty performance.
The Whakatane 26-year-old could have justifiably focused on himself, bemoaning the heat, or the River Seine current or how he’d had the gold medal sewn up only to run out of puff just at the exact time Yee – seemingly beaten – suddenly felt good again. Sacre Bleu! It was so darn close.
Instead, Wilde sat and congratulated Yee in a quiet embrace afterwards, a special finishing chute moment with his friendly foe that spoke volumes of the sport. And of Wilde and Yee. The three core Olympic values – excellence, respect and friendship –encapsulated in an iconic image for the ages.
What did you say to Alex?
“Yeah it was so nice just saying, where we’ve come from in the last eight years, being room-mates in a Super League Triathlon to being Olympic silver and gold medallists, we’ve come a long way together,” Wilde said.
“We’ve progressed exactly the same, and it was just really nice sharing that moment with him, both of us having a fair race, both of us having a good swim and then just no issues on the bike, no issues, no penalties, it was just a pure triathlon race and we were finally able to show we can do it on the grand stage.”
Wilde then paid tribute to the young Kiwi debutant, Dylan McCullough, who had played such a huge role in getting him back into the race after the Kiwi No.1’s tough swim and fumbling T1. New Zealand had a plan for a domestique all along – surprise, surprise – and it worked to a tee, McCullough proving himself an absolute warrior.
Finishing 19th in his Olympic bow, making up no less than six places on the run leg, was rich reward for McCullough’s selfless efforts. Roll on LA 2028. For McCullough and Wilde.
“Hopefully we can get Dyl’s [McCullough] up there. Wow, what a race he had. That [my] whole race was down to Dylan, he helped me bridge the gap and he was just the best team-mate I could possibly image to have.
“He put in an absolute effort on that bike and I couldn’t have asked anyone else to do that.”
Wilde was 1:03 down out of the Seine River and didn’t have a great T1, returning to tip his dangling goggles into his box and then struggling to clip his helmet. Who knows how much the effort he took to run up to Yee after that, or the hard swim, ultimately played in the final result.
“Incredible today, the crowds were incredible, my team-mate Dylan was incredible, he sacrificed his own race to come and help me deliver for New Zealand and it definitely saved me 10-15 minutes of hard work bridging that gap,” Wilde said.
“I did all I could. You obviously saw that out on the race course. Went out hard, felt good, but I think I just didn’t do enough preparation for the heat. Obviously we were expected to race at 8am, which was going to be a little bit cooler but being in Andorra wasn’t too hot, I just don’t think I got that heat preparation as I would have liked.
“But I wasn’t expecting to run super hot. But hey, it is what it is. That’s the only thing I could put it down to. It was great to race Alex, just to have a purely race on race and I got beaten by the better man.
“I gave it everything. It went to my plan, worked hard at the start, and hopefully have enough to finish and yeah, that last 400-500m, it was tough.
“But I’m just happy the way I raced and just stoked to get the silver medal, I did everything I could possibly do to win.”
