Images: World Triathlon
By Kent Gray/Triathlon.kiwi
It was a bittersweet Friday for New Zealand at WTCS Weihai with Hayden Wilde uncharacteristically off key while Dylan McCullough produced his career best result at World Triathlon’s top tier.
The latest edition of short course triathlon’s great new rivalry turned into a one man show as Alex Yee waltzed away with the standard distance race in China from 2022 world champion Leo Bergere and first-time WTCS medallist Miguel Hidalago (BRA) by 46s and 57s respectively to put himself in pole position for a maiden world title.
Wilde could only manage 7th in the penultimate round and needed all his run prowess to narrowly run down McCullough in 8th. Wilde was 1min 40s down on Yee, with McCullough two seconds further adrift and notably ahead of such luminaries as Frenchman Pierre Le Corre and former WTCS leader Matthew Hauser.
Conventional wisdom had Wilde right in the mix on a course that perfectly suited to his bike and run strengths but the Kiwi was strangely unable to respond on the hilly bike course and started the run 1min 29s down.
He started the 10km in 21st so made up an impressive 14 places with a split of 29:55, a time only eclipsed by Yee’s 29:40. Still, it was cold consolation as Yee took a stranglehold on the world title ahead of next month’s season-decider in Torremolinos-Andalucia. Yee has 3000 points, from Bergere (2572) and Wilde (2476), and the title appears this to lose on October 20.
Wilde had talked of this being the toughest WTCS course he’d encounter beforehand and how he was looking forward to a bike leg where anyone behind him couldn’t simply suck along in his draft. But after a decent swim, he wasn’t the protagonist up the steep Weihai climb everyone anticipated.
The Paris Olympic Games silver medallist complained of an inflamed peroneal tendon after last weekend’s French GP finale. It is yet to be confirmed if the foot injury hampered his pedal stroke or if he was feeling under the weather although it was strange that the Maltese Falcon was able to run as strongly.
McCullough was at the pointy end in the swim and for much of the bike, especially on the climb. He sat up at one stage as if waiting for Wilde ala Paris but then but his head down again. He closed out with a gritty 31:20 10km split to eclipse his 12th at last year’s WTCS Sunderland.
It is a another huge step forward after McCullough’s domestique role for Wilde and eventually 19th individually in Paris. He’ll take the confidence shot into next month’s World Triathlon Finals in Torremolinos-Andalucia where he may well decide to have a crack at the U23 title in his final year in the division.
That’s TBC. What’s not in doubt is McCullough’s steady rise into the top echelon of the WTCS.
WTCS Weihai – Men’s Top 10
1. Alex Yee (GBR) 1:48:21
2. Leo Bergere (FRA) +46s
3. Miguel Hidalago (BRA) +57s Ist medal
4. Alberto Gonzalez Garia (ESP) +1:26
5. Vincent Luis (FRA) +1:31
6. Luke Willian (AUS) +1:37
7. Hayden Wilde (NZL) +1:40
8. Dylan McCullough (NZL) +1:42
9. Jack Willis (GBR) +1:57
10. Pierre Le Corre (FRA) ,+2:21
