You have to love Hayden Wilde, a brilliant triathlete who lays it all out there, every single time he toes the line. Last Sunday in his native Taupō was no different.
The 27-year-old Kiwi superstar went into the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship as the hot favourite to successfully step up in distance after his short-course heroics earlier in 2024. Notably that agonising second place behind Alex Yee in an epic Olympic showdown at Paris 2024.
Wilde pipped in epic showdown
For most of a spectacular day in New Zealand, it appeared Hayden would top the podium as he was in the perfect position coming out of the swim and then first into T2 after the fastest bike split of the day.
Wilde then built a lead of just under a minute on the run, but he could never truly put the race to bed with Belgian Jelle Geens stubbornly refusing to fall away completely.
Then, with a few short kilometres left, Hayden started to flag just a little and Geens started to take big chunks out of the gap. Pretty soon the lead had changed hands and Jelle was romping clear for a famous success.
Wilde once again finished a big race with his reputation enhanced after claiming second place, and afterwards he provide a fascinating take on what had happened. His problem wasn’t being able to go fast enough, quite the opposite.
What went wrong for Hayden?
He said: “I put big ambition out there, obviously I went out there, I was naïve, but I wanted to give it a go. I did the training, and I felt I rode appropriately and I know these roads like the back of my hand, I knew that as soon as we hit View Road there was an opportunity of opening a gap, got that gap and I felt confident going in [to the run].
“It’s weird to say, and I think the short course guys will say this, it’s really hard to slow yourself down in that first 10km and I just couldn’t do it, I was too excited, I went out probably too hard.”
More middle distance in 2025
Wilde will have plenty of chances to get things just right over middle distances in 2025, after announcing he will take a ‘two-year rest period’ from international short-course racing. He will take in a couple of WTCS events next year, but the main focus will be on longer distances.
