By Roger Childs

In a dramatic conclusion on the banks of the River Seine, Yee upgraded his Tokyo silver as he overhauled rival Hayden Wilde in the closing stages. –Harry Poole, BBC Sport 31 July 2024

Almost gold for Hayden Wilde

Just six seconds in it, but Wilde had to settle for silver behind his great rival and friend Alex Yee from Great Britain. The individual triathlons were postponed for fear of athletes in the swimming leg being affected by pollution in the River Seine. However, on Wednesday afternoon–evening New Zealand time, the men and women took to the river for the first leg of the triathlons.

Kiwi hope the personable Wilde, who was definitely one of the favourites, was more than a minute behind the leaders after the swim. He is a very strong cyclist and with the aid of fellow Kiwi Dylan McCullough he caught the leading bunch with two bike laps to go. Alex Yee raced to the front at the start of the 10km run, but Wilde was soon beside him. Then, after about 1.5kms, the Kiwi raced ahead and put a 15 second lead between himself and the Brit. He was still ahead with 500m to go, but then Yee put on a sprint and on the blue finishing carpet headed Wilde by 6 seconds. 

Much to the delight of the huge, largely French crowd, Léo Bergère came in third. It’s not often in an Olympic event that the three favourites finish in the expected order. A nice touch at the end was the last male to finish, 50th placed Felix Duchampt from Romania did high fives with scores of spectators on his way to the finish line.

Delight for French spectators in the women’s event

The women competed before the men and unluckily had to bike on wet streets. The result was a number of crashes on the tight corners of the course and the cobblestones of The Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Tens of thousands of enthusiastic spectators cheered the athletes on and the French onlookers were delighted when local favourite Cassandre Beaugrand was in the front bunch on the run. Earlier defending Olympic champion, Bermudan Flora Duffy, has easily won the swim and it took four bike laps for the chase group to haul her in. 

As well as Beaugrand, world champion Brit Beth Potter, Swiss Julie Derron and French woman Emma Lombardi made up the leading four for most of the run. They ran together until lap four when the French favourite effortlessly moved away and won comfortably from Derron and Potter. 

See this article about a Belgian athlete’s experience of what was in the Seine River.