New year, new direction, the same old Hayden Wilde.
The Kiwi talisman picked up where he left off at last year’s WTCS finale in Spain by winning the 2025 season opening sprint in Abu Dhabi overnight.
Wilde overcame a 30 second deficit out of the Arabian Gulf, hit turbo boost on the bike to quickly catch up, counter-attacked to destroy the legs of a few more rivals, and then outkicked Aussie Matt Hauser to break the tape in a thrilling sprint finish.
In other words, glory employing the Whakatane Falcon’s stock-standard playbook.
“I just went out there and had a bit of fun, you know,” Wilde said after stopping the clock in 48:21, two seconds clear of Hauser with Portugal’s Vasco Vilaça rounding out the podium.
It was sweet revenge for a run of bad luck in the UAE capital the past two years with a puncture ending his chances in 2023 before the event was cancelled by inclement weather last March.
The unanswered question now is whether Wilde will be tempted to cash in on his fast start and find a way to squeeze a crack at the short course title around his “refresh” year ambitions in the T100 Triathlon World Tour.
There are gaps in the T100 schedule, which opens in Singapore on April 5-6, that might well encourage a hybrid approach that becomes self-perpetuating, especially if Wilde decides to race the next WTCS race in Yokohama on May 17 and has more medal success.
On Sunday, the 27-year-old world No.1 left everyone hanging.
“I don’t know how many of these, the world series [WTSC] I’ll do but it’s nice to be back and getting a win here for the first time. I’ve always had bad luck here but T100 is up next in Singapore so I’m looking forward to racing the long course boys and the mid course boys.”
“Ah, well, we’ll see you back on the blue carpet no doubt,” interviewer Doug Gray said, perhaps hoping for a firm commitment on when that will be. A smile and “Cheers everyone” from Wilde, looking directly down the camera, was the best the World Triathlon staffer got.
Sunday’s win won’t have gone unnoticed by his new rivals on the T100 Tour. It was a solid ROI on Wilde’s decision to lay the foundation for his season with a training base camp in desert.
“I feel like this is my second home, I’ve been here for about three or four weeks and, you know, they just welcomed me in with open arms and I’ve just been loving it here,” he said.
The event’s shift to Hudayriat Island after nine years HQ’d out of the Yas Marina F1 circuit caught a few on the hop from the get-go, a strong left-to-right current and bright glare quickly stretching the swim out.
Wilde didn’t sweat on his deficit out of the water and after catching up on the bike by lap three, launched off the front with Simon Westermann and Tjebbe Kaindl. Hauser and Vilaça dug in to catch up, Ben Dijkstra also going well on his WTCS debut to be up front into T2.
Soon though it was the Wilde-Hauser-Vilaça show as the trio stretched away on the 5km run Vilaça dropped off at the bell with Wilde launching his winning break down the penultimate straight.
“’I’ve raced Matt over the 5K many times and I saw his coach and he was like, ‘one more push!’, and I’m like, I know for sure he’s got one more push, so I just had to hold the pace on, and he was coming hot, and I was just happy to hold on. “
It looked like you enjoyed yourself on the bike course, Hayden, a big smile on your face there?
“Yeah, yeah, it was full on you know. Even though it’s a flat course, there’s not really enough time to slow down so the pace was always on if you were in the group.
“So I was like, heck, why not, let’s go off the front and see who comes. I’ve been riding on this course for nearly a month now and nearly every day so, yeah Hudayriat [Island] is like a second home.”
“…but with Matt, Morgan [Pearson], all those guys, I know I had to push hard on the bike to drop a few of the good runners and it looks like we did that and got away.’
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