He loves Abu Dhabi but the races themselves there hadn’t gone Hayden Wilde‘s way – until now.

The Kiwi picked up where he left off last year in the WTCS as he followed his 2024 Grand Final success in Torremolinos with victory in the season opener over the sprint distance.

While much of his focus in the coming months is going to be on middle-distance racing, especially the T100 Triathlon World Tour, he showed none of his speed has been blunted by a new training regime with an impressive victory in the UAE.

‘We had good fun out there’

He made light of a 29-seconds deficit after the swim by animating the bike, so much so that he even had time to drive a three-man breakaway before it all came back together on the run.

Aussie Matt Hauser did his best to stay with him until deep into the run but Wilde kicked late on to start his season in perfect style and round off a long spell of acclimatization in the UAE.

He just missed out on a world title in Abu Dhabi in 2022 and a flat tyre on the bike derailed his hopes of a 2023 race victory there so this was some long-overdue compensation.

And afterwards he said: “I feel like this is now my second home. I’ve been here for about three or four weeks and, you know, they just welcome me with open arms and I’ve been loving it here.

“I just went out there and had a bit of fun – I got a breakaway with my breakaway mate again [Simon Westermann] and it didn’t really stick, but we had good fun out there! I’ve been riding this course nearly every day for a month now.

“I know with Matt, Morgan [Pearson], all those guys, that I had to push hard on the bike to drop a few of the good runners and it looks like we did that and got away.”

‘Get yourself a sub 2:10’

All of which meant it boiled down to a duel in the sun with Hauser, once they’d distanced Vasco Vilaca in third.

And Wilde added: “I’ve raced Matt over the 5K many times and I know for sure he’s got one more push, so I just had to hold the pace on, and he was coming hot, and I was just happy to hold on.

“It’s good to be back and getting a win for the first time here – I’ve always had bad luck here.”

Wilde has always said that he’ll race some WTCS events this season when they align with his schedule and he confirmed: “I don’t know how many of the World Series I’ll do this year – T100’s up next in Singapore so I’m looking forward to racing the long and middle course boys.”

And he signed off with a lovely shout out for Alex Yee.

The two have enjoyed an incredible rivalry in recent years which has elevated the sport – and their battle at last summer’s Olympics took it to new heights.

Asked by World Triathlon’s Doug Gray if he wished Yee could have been in Abu Dhabi, Wilde answered: “100%. But he’s prepping up for the London Marathon – good luck out there mate, get yourself a sub 2:10, we’re all rooting for you.”