Hayden Wilde

EVENT: Triathlon - Men's Individual, Mixed Team Relay

Hayden Wilde is an Olympic bronze and silver medallist, and Commonwealth Games silver medallist, and by 2024 had earned the No 1 world ranking in men's triathlon.

Wilde won Olympic bronze in Tokyo in 2021, New Zealand's first Olympic triathlon medal in 13 years. The Bay of Plenty athlete is known as ‘the falcon' in the triathlon world, due to his ability to attack from behind, and he did exactly that in Tokyo, producing a spectacular run in the final leg to claim a podium spot. 

In Paris, Wilde was only 29th after the swim (in a field of 55) and was well back for much of the bike section, and was helped by teammate Dylan McCullough who dropped back and rode with Wilde so that entering the run he was 4th. He ran aggressively and opened up a significant lead on Briton Alex Yee, who is known as a fast finisher.

Sure enough, though Wilde battled away, glancing over his shoulder, Yee began to gather him in over the final 500 metres and passed him with about 300 metres remaining.

Yee won gold in 1h 43min 33s, Wilde silver, six seconds behind, and fast-finishing Frenchman Leo Bergere, the 2022 world champion, was third, four seconds behind Wilde. 

At the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, Wilde held a comfortable lead and looked as if he might be heading for a gold medal as he entered the run, but he received a controversial 10-second penalty that ruled out his chances of winning the race. He was penalised for not racking his bike correctly, and ultimately lost out on the gold to Yee. Despite the disappointment, Wilde's sportsmanship was praised by the press and on social media.

Wilde, who grew up in Whakatane, attended Trident High School. When he was 16, he became the youngest winner of the two-day Coast to Coast, which consists of 243km of running, cycling and kayaking. He won in 12h 18min of hard slog.

He was inspired to really throw himself into the triathlon after watching the event on television at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and particularly the winning performance of Englishman Alistair Brownlee, who edged out his brother Jonathan by six seconds to take the gold.

In 2016, Wilde secured his third world title by the age of 19 when he won the Snowy Mountains ITU cross triathlon world championship, following two XTERRA under-19 titles.

He began to make his mark internationally in 2019 with a third placing in Tokyo in an Olympic qualifying event and several other good performances, including wins at mixed relay level in Devonport, Edmonton and the under-23 ITU grand final in Lausanne.  

As well as his Olympic bronze medal in 2021 he also finished second in the Super League Championship series that year, with victory in London and a third placing in the European championship in Austria.

The New Zealander continued to move up the world rankings in 2022, when he won the Arena Games series finale in Singapore. He made a strong start to the 2022 Super League season, successfully defending his London title and then finished third in Munich the following week. There were further victories at Malibu and Toulouse and he ended up winning the series.

Wilde peeled off a string of strong performances in 2023 and eventually raised himself to the top of the world rankings. He had victories in a World Cup event in New Plymouth, a world series race in Yokohama, and the world sprint championship in Hamburg, plus several other podium finishes. He finished second in the world championship series.

Wilde was a finalist in the 2021 Halberg Awards section for New Zealand's Favourite Sporting Moment for his Olympic effort – his exciting race and the emotional interview he gave afterwards. It was New Zealand's first medal of the Games.

He lives in Tauranga, where he trains with Craig Kirkwood, his coach since 2016. Kirkwood also coaches athletics star Sam Tanner, and Tanner and Wilde sometimes train together.