Hayden Wilde has been forced to pull out of Saturday’s WTCS race in Alghero after struggling for much of this week with ‘high temperatures and headaches’.
The Kiwi superstar was due to make a long-awaited return to short-course competition after a start to the season which has already seen him finish third in the IRONMAN 70.3 at Geelong and blitz his opening T100 event in Singapore.
With the likes of Australia’s reigning WTCS champion Matt Hauser and Britain’s Olympic gold medallist, Alex Yee, also lining up on the Italian island of Sardinia, the race was due to be one of the biggest showdowns yet in what has already been a thrilling 2026 campaign.
Stacked field has arrived in Sardinia
A stacked field has arrived in Sardinia for Saturday’s event, which also heralds the start of Olympic qualification, with athletes starting their bids to get selected for Los Angeles 2028.
Wilde, who missed the opening two WTCS races in Samarkand and Yokohama, will now take a few days off to get himself fit again before refocusing his attentions on the next T100 race in San Francisco next weekend.
Announcing that he was unable to compete on Instagram, Wilde, who last season battled back from a career-threatening bike accident to win the T100 Triathlon World Championship, said: “Not the way I wanted to start my short course return.
“Was in super good shape and things were going to plan until they weren’t… Tuesday evening, I started to get fever-like symptoms, and by Thursday night, I was bedridden with achy body, high temperatures and headaches.
‘Extremely frustrating and gutted’
“I sought advice with my team and the @worldtriathlon head dr which he came to the conclusion I was not fit to race. Extremely frustrating and gutted, but unfortunately, this is part of it sometimes.
“Presuming I picked this virus up from my trip to Salzburg. Heading back to Andorra for a few more days off, and hopefully will be able to catch the flight to San Francisco for the @t100triathlon next week.”
With the race attracting such a star-studded line-up and with World Triathlon looking to mark the fact that it has now attracted 500,000 followers on Instagram, it has been announced that the race in Alghero will be streamed free of charge.
The free race pass is available for people wishing to watch the event at TriathlonLive HERE.
Once you have clicked the ‘Watch now’ tag on the Alghero Race Pass and either signed in or signed up, the promotional code MYRACEPASS will ensure you don’t miss a second of the action and that it won’t cost you anything at all to watch it.
For a full preview of this race, click HERE.
