Hayden Wilde is the new Ironman 70.3 vice world champion, after a thrilling race in Taupo, New Zealand.
The Paris Olympic silver medallist put his hometown advantage to good use. After an 8th-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 1:58:51, 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.
