Hayden Wilde has just become World Champion Sprint in Hamburg in phenomenal fashion; the kiwi decided the race during the final 1600-meter run, beating such big favorites as Alex Yee and Kristian Blummenfelt.
Today only the top 30 men started – after qualifying yesterday via the semifinals and eventual repachage – and the race was over three heats of 300-meter swim, 7-kilometer bike and 1.6-kilometer run. In the first and second heats, the last 10 men dropped out, leaving 10 men to start in the third and all-deciding heat. At the bottom of this article you will find the full top thirty.
In the all-deciding third heat, it was Csongor Lehmann who came out of the water first, but the remaining nine men all followed within ten seconds. Kristian Blummenfelt, Max Studer and Miguel Hidalgo had to sprint briskly towards their bikes to stay connected, failed to do so and ended up a few seconds behind. Despite the hard riding at the front, Blummenfelt managed to get back into the leading group within a few hundred meters, and not much later Studer and Hidalgo also rejoined, leaving the complete ten-man group together on the bike. That situation, despite a powerful attack by Blummenfelt, remained unchanged until T2.
During the run, it was all or nothing for all ten men: 1,600 meters separated them from the world title. At least Hayden Wilde was out first and running devastatingly fast. Seemingly relaxed he immediately grabbed a lead of a few seconds over a chasing group of four, consisting of Kristian Blummenfelt, Alex Yee, Matthew Hauser and Vasco Vilaca. Yet none of them managed to catch up with Wilde, and with that he crowned himself world champion in magnificent fashion. He remained 2 seconds ahead of Vilaca and also 2 seconds ahead of Yee.
Men Heat 3:
1. Hayden Wilde
2. Vasco Vilaca
3. Alex Yee
4. Kristian Blummenfelt
5. Matthew Hauser
6. Max Studer
7. Miguel Hidalgo
8. Tim Hellwig
9. Tyler Mislawchuk
10. Csongor Lehmann
Men Heat 2:
11. Tayler Reid
12. Marten van Riel
13. Antonio Serrat Seoane
14. Simon Henseleit
15. Lasse Lührs
16. Seth Rider
17. Tom Richard
18. Valentin Wernz
19. Manoel Messias
20. Roberto Sanchez Mantecon
Men Heat 1:
21. Roberto Sanchez Mantecon
22. Henri Schoeman
23. Jawad Abdelmoula
24. Bence Bicsák
25. Lasse Nygaard Priester
26. Charles Paquet
27. Matthew McElroy
28. Janus Staufenberg
29. Jelle Geens
30. Jacob Birthwistle
