Wilde, shaken by pre-race bike crash, unsurprisingly off the pace at WTCS Karlovy Vary

One certainty from World Triathlon Championship Series (WTCS) Karlovy Vary overnight? That Hayden Wilde won’t take a second subpar result in triathlon’s pre-eminent short course circuit, albeit wholly unsurprising in the circumstances, lying down.

Nor will he take getting to the race course, any race course, for granted, ever again.

Shaken by a pre-race bike crash, Wilde had to settle for 17^th in the Czech Republic standard distance race, two places ahead of Kiwi team-mate Tayler Reid as German Henry Graf won for the first time at WTCS level following an absorbing battle with the Brazilian Miguel Hidalgo.

The uncharacteristic result – not helped by the pre-race off which conjured memories of his Paris Olympic test event spill en-route to the course – came after Wilde finished 11^th at the previous WTCS French Riviera. That result on May 31 was easily explainable given the Kiwi talisman had won the dual hosted T100 race on the Côte d’Azur the previous day.

In the early hours of Monday, there outwardly seemed few mitigating circumstances for Wilde, save for the fact he’s still barely four months back from his May 4 training ride crash in Tokyo that left him nursing a smashed left scapula, broken ribs and lung damage. And the fresh crash overnight that, according to World Triathlon’s Doug Gray, “clearly … left him shaken though thankfully not any more physically broken.” 

Wilde had hoped a couple of weeks at the Red Bull High Performance Centre in Austria pre Karlovy Vary would result in a little more shoulder mobility after his swim had been exposed in the previous French sprint.

Instead, the Kiwi exited the water 1min 51sec adrift of the human Hungarian fish, Mark Devay. That left Wilde on the backfoot from the get go and not even the day’s fastest and only sub 30min run split – 29:48 – could camouflage that.

Next up for Wilde is T100 Oropesa on Saturday (Spain time) where the longer bike and run should help mask any freestyle deficiency. The 28-year-old is not scheduled to race WTCS Weihai on September 26 though has raised the prospect of starting the WTCS Grand Final in Wollongong on October 19 – a day after contesting T100 Wollongong.

Any attempt at the double in ‘The Gong’ would put an asterisk on the WTCS result and it might not be till next year that Wilde has a uninterrupted tilt at the world short course title (even if his focus remains the T100 series). What he does know from this challenging campaign is that the days of the Wilde v Alex Yee show in the WTCS with everyone else battling for third appears over as the likes of Graf, Hidalgo, Csongor Lehmann (the bronze medallist overnight), Alessio Crociani and runaway series leader Matt Hauser step up.

Wilde remains 14^th in the overall WTCS standings with Reid 39^th.

Reid was in just barely in touch after the swim in Karlovy Vary, his 15:46 effort 28sec down on Devay. He eventually came home with a 32:04 split for the 10km in the wet and wild conditions.

Graf won in 1:49:22. Wilde clocked 1:51:14 and Reid 1:51:27.

GBR’s Beth Potter won the women’s race (sans any Kiwis) in the Czech foothills from Tayler Spivey (USA) and Lisa Tertsch (GER).

Click for World Triathlon’s men’s and women’s race reports. You can find results here.