🦅 How confident is Hayden Wilde in this ridiculous purple patch of his atop the world of mid-distance triathlon?
The answer came during the 18km run at T100 French Riviera on Saturday when he ignored any lingering physical hangover from his Ironman 70.3 World Championship win in Nice six days earlier and the blistering pace in the moment to share a quiet word with Kiwi pal Kyle Smith.
“It was really nice to see Kyle up there,” Wilde said after being forced to dig deep on the bike and deeper again in the early kilometres of the run to catch frontrunners Smith and Jelle Geens (BEL) after a slow exit from T2 due to socks that initially refused the bumbling, Velcro-like advances of his feet.
“Kyle’s in great form, and we were having a conversation on the run and working together. I said: ‘I’ll pace you until a certain point, and then we’re not friends.’
The moment Smith realised he was on his own came roughly 5½km from home when Wilde made his move. There was no shame in being unable to respond to the Whakatane Falcon’s surge. No one in mid distance swim, bike and run can presently, much less a bloke who was making his comeback from two years in the doldrums and who had literally been hit by a bus less than 24 hours earlier.
“And then, yeah, went off [the front] and made my move and really stoked to take the win here,” Wilde continued. “The body’s caught up really nice after last week.”
No kidding.
The rest, as they say, is history, more of it for Wilde: an eighth T100 Triathlon World Tour win of his career, his second of 2026 and the extension of his lead in the ‘Race to Qatar’ with Saudi Arabia (November 28) and Qatar (December) 11 to come.
The runaway PTO World No.1 looks unstoppable at this distance and dangerous where ever and whenever he starts. Reigning T100 champion, freshly-minted 70.3 world champion, a second T100 title seemingly his to lose in Doha.
In the past three weeks at Jersey (Supertri), Nice (70.3 worlds) and now Saint-Raphaël-Fréjus, he’s amassed US$200k (NZ$352k) in earnings and his relentless September isn’t finished yet.
Next Sunday, the Andorra-based 29-year-old goes in search of the one thing that has proved elusive in 2026, world and Olympic ranking points at the WTCS season finale in Pontevedra.
Wilde isn’t in the hunt for the world title but he’d happily take a physiological blow over the likes of Matthew Hauser in Spain along with a much needed rankings bump.
But that is for next weekend. On Saturday, it was about celebrating another brilliant, tactical victory and the comeback of his new Andorra training buddy Smith.
“Training together gave him the confidence to come back out and race. He’s had a rough few years, and to see him at the front and be confident, it’s fantastic.
“We’ve been hitting blows since we were, like, 10 years old. We’re from the same region in New Zealand, and we used to race each other in cross-country and, and track races, and then obviously switched to triathlon after the off-road stuff. So, it’s just really cool to see another Kiwi go do well and to back up a hard few years for himself. I’m proud of him.”
All of New Zealand triathlon was.
It’s certainly hard not to be smitten with Wilde’s form, especially when you consider his Tokyo training ride crash last year and that the early part of his 2026 campaign had been stifled by conflict in the Middle East and then a lung issue. Careers and certainly seasons have been lost to much less.
But not Wilde. The fast racing of T100 is right in his wheelhouse, enabling him to use his bike and run strengths to make up for any minor deficiency in the water.
“It’s fantastic. You know, we were all pushing each other to push this sport harder and faster. We were super fast on the bike there today, like a 46, 47km average today. And super quick today on the run. The first 10km I think I was running 3:03mins per km pace, to catch up. That’s like 64 mins half [marathon] pace.”
What’s really impressed in Nice and now 60-odd km down the Côte d’Azur is Wilde’s increasingly smart race tactics. He’s learned, after a little advice from pro cyclist turned elite triathlete Cam Wurth, that you only need to win races by two seconds, not two minutes.
The new race craft was at play again on Saturday.
“I think I was like fourth out of the turn of the swim, which was a really positive start and gives you momentum. And then coming out of the front group and made a decision to not put the socks on this time in transition [T1],” Wilde revealed.
“I didn’t want to waste too much time, as I knew it was gonna be a little bit congested coming out of T1. Then we got to work and there was a lot of guys up front, so quite congested through that first sector, and then it started splitting up a bit. “Kyle and Rico [Bogen] went off the front and I had to put in a big move. Unfortunately, my power meter wasn’t working all day, so I was riding blind. We finally caught them up, but I had to use a couple of poker chips on that one.
“On the run I just had to stay composed. Jelle, obviously, had a good gap on me at the start, and I just had to run my own pace and finally caught it up.”
And then breeze past the Belgian and Smith.
They were all friends again and playing the mutual appreciation game in the finishing chute, including Wilde who said he was “super stoked for Kyle and obviously Jelle for his second place.”
But all of Wilde’s rivals must be quietly concerned by the new found tactical nous. Whether he has too racing many miles in his legs this September to finish the month with a bang in Pontevedra next Sunday is almost a moot point.
For Hauser, Alex Yee and the rest of the short-course establishment, Wilde’s trajectory makes for uncomfortable reading as LA28 looms.
