By Kent Gray/Triathlon.kiwi in Paris
Some days all you can do is take your fate on the chin and accept sport can be awfully cruel. It doesn’t make it any more palatable but as Hayden Wilde said after New Zealand forgettable Mixed Relay Monday in Paris, “it is what it is”.
New Zealand’s hopes of signing off their Olympic triathlon campaign on a high were dashed by a crash that took down hard-charging lead-out man Wilde on the penultimate corner of the first bike leg.
With it went Team NZL’s hopes of eclipsing their 12th place in Tokyo three years ago. Fight as he might, as indeed Nicole van der Kaay, Dylan McCullough and Ainsley Thorpe did on the following legs, New Zealand never recovered and had to settle for 14th and last of the finishers.
With Pierre Le Corre taken out in the same crash, France’s golden hopes were dashed too. Germany were the chief benefactors with Laura Lindemann pipping Team USA’s Taylor Knibb and Brit Beth Potter in an epic sprint for the medals.
There were other mitigating factors for the Kiwis with Wilde and anchor Thorpe revealing afterwards they had suffered bacterial sickness after their individual races. Thorpe’s bout was so severe she nearly had to give up her spot to reserve Brea Roderick.
At least NZ had reserves in Paris; Belgium were forced to withdraw from the MR altogether the previous evening with one of their four athletes, Claire Michel, falling ill –presumably also after the touch-and-go swims in the Seine.
But Team NZL wasn’t looking for excuses and the reality was only Austria, who were lapped out of the race, stood between them and the wooden spoon. France’s fight back to 4th was also telling as the Paris debrief begins and attention turns to LA ’28 and hopefully a Commonwealth Games in between.
The Paris MR turned out to be a case of what might have been with Wilde fighting back from 13th out of the water and 20 seconds adrift to take the lead on the bike with a herculean effort over the first 6½km of the 7km leg. Had he gone clear into T2 and ran per trademark, van der Kaay would likely have been tagged near the lead and who knows what might have transpired from there.
But just as the individual silver medallist’s luck ran out metres from the finish line last Wednesday, it was snuffed out again close to the home straight on Alexandre III bridge.
“I was coming around the corner and one of the other athletes went on the inside and took a bit of a dive, and I had to recorrect my stance coming into the corner. And, yeah, just lost the front wheel,” Wilde said.
Things went from bad to worse when the Kiwi No.1, who had quickly got back on the bike and then tried to make up the lost ground with a quick escape from T2, only to have trouble slipping into one of his shoes. As he pushed down with extra effort to force his heel in, a combination of the thrust and lost balance saw him headbutt the handlebars of his parked bike and open up a nick near his right eyebrow.
It made for some dramatic, blood-stained pictures but it didn’t hurt as much as the Kiwi disappointment, compounded by the fact Le Corre cartwheeled over Wilde
“I haven’t come down for probably six years so I was kinda gutted that happened today,” Wilde said.
“And, yeah, I was gutted to the take Pierre Le Corre out with me as well. You don’t want to take anyone out, let alone France [the favourites at their home Games]. I was really rooting for them to have a good result and they had a great team, and they fought and came back into the race, which was cool so good on them for a good fight.”
Wilde typically attempted to shoulder the team’s collective frustration.
“I was just gutted to let the team down with that. You know, crashes happen as part of racing, but fought as hard as I could to try to get back into the race. But just felt pretty fatigued coming on to the run.
“With that adrenaline spike, it was really hard to get the legs moving.”
If anybody deserved a clean crack at the MR it was Thorpe who crashed in the wet in the women’s individual en-route to 44th, before going down ill.
“I was very close to not racing today,” Thorpe said afterwards at a “end of sport” Team farewell for friends and family at NZ House on the Champs-Élysées.
“If it had been a day earlier, I definitely would not have made the start line. I was actually hoping it would be postponed today with the water quality but I didn’t get that extra day.
“Yeah, I was bed-ridden for a day and then tried to get the body moving pre-race day, and it felt so much better today. I did everything I could to get my body back to normal, had the nutritionist help me out, and, yeah, good medical team around me to get back feeling 100 percent.”
In the end, New Zealand finished in 1:30:23 – nearly five minutes behind Germany.
The individual splits for the Kiwis where: Wilde (00:20:34), van der Kaay (00:24:12), McCullough (00:20:48) and Thorpe (00:24:49). It placed Wilde 13th equal, van der Kaay 13th, McCullough 12th and Thorpe 14th in their respective legs.
“It’s not our day,” Wilde said in summary.
“You know, if you’re off just by a margin, and you miss that group, it’s so hard to fight back. But it is what it is. We fight on, reassess and look into LA.”
