Hayden Wilde played a pivotal part in the result of Monday’s Olympic Games Triathlon Mixed Relay at Paris 2024 – just not in the way he might have wanted.
The 27-year-old New Zealander made global headlines last Wednesday for not only his brilliant performance in coming so close to individual gold, but also the sporting way he dealt with that agonising defeat by great rival Alex Yee. To say he won hearts and minds around the world would be an understatement.
Five days later Wilde was once more a key part of the story as he led off the Kiwi team of four, but this was absolutely not the script he would have written.
During his bike leg, he came down on a corner in the French capital, and in the process brought down Pierre Le Corre of hot favourites France. All completely accidental, but in that moment the home hopes of glory were extinguished.
France would eventually finish fourth behind medal winners Germany, United States and Britain. Wilde and New Zealand meanwhile came home 14th of the 15 competing nations. Afterwards he spoke in detail about what had happened.
Wilde on Mixed Relay
Speaking to Kent Gray for the official Triathlon NZ website, Hayden explained: “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.”
It was unusual occurrence for Wilde – who is normally such an excellent bike handler – and he was devastated not only for his own team, but also for Le Corre and the French.
“I haven’t come down for probably six years so I was kinda gutted that happened today. 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.
Rough day for Hayden and New Zealand
That spill was not the only painful moment for Wilde on what was a hugely disappointing day – he also sustained a cut near his eye when accidentally headbutting the handlebars of his bike as he tried to put on a shoe in T2.
It was also revealed that Wilde’s team-mate Ainsley Thorpe came close to not racing after falling ill following the women’s individual race which she had crashed en route to a 44th-place finish.
She said: “I was very close to not racing today. 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.”
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