IRONMAN – Bahrain Victorious 13 triathlete Hayden Wilde is the new Ironman 70.3 vice world champion, after a thrilling race in Taupo, New Zealand.
The Paris Olympics silver-medallist put his hometown advantage to good use. After an eighth-placed 1.9-kilometre swim behind teammate Henri Schoeman and just 32 seconds behind the leader, Wilde went to work flattening the hilly 90-kilometre bike course in a time of one hour 58 minutes 51 seconds, the fastest split of the day.
First through the bike-to-run transition from a group of six, Wilde led through 18 kilometres of the half-marathon, passed only in the closing stages by Jelle Geens.
Wilde said post-race: “I’ve raced Jelle for many years now. I know he is a classy runner so even though everyone was like, ‘You’ve got it in the bag’, I was like, ‘He’ll keep chomping at me no matter what’. And yeah, that’s what happened today.
“I put the pedal down and just wanted to get a bit of a gap and the legs felt really good going onto the run. I think it was mostly from the crowd that was boosting me up a bit and saw my coach telling me to slow down.
“Coming from an Olympic distance background, it’s really hard for us to actually pull back and go to a different pace. I was really struggling to do that and I think I paid the price.”
Schoeman, also making his Ironman 70.3 World Championship debut, rode in the front group for most of the bike leg. He then ran a steady half marathon and overtook last year’s champion Rico Bogen to finish sixth overall.
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