After his second-place finish last week, Hayden Wilde just won Supertri Chicago. The Kiwi decided the race – where many favorites sat together for a long time and it was especially notable that Alex Yee wasn’t able to keep up – during the closing run.
In Chicago – just like last week in Boston a new location for Supertri – the program, like all Supertri races, featured the Enduro format. The Enduro format involves a 300 meter swim, a 4km bike and 1.6km run, and when that’s done, the athletes dive straight into the water for a second heat over the same distances. Even after that, it’s not finished, because again without a break, a third and all-deciding heat then follows. If athletes swim, bike or run ninety seconds behind the front-runner, they will be taken out of the race and thus eliminated early.
Heat 1 – Yee facing deficit
In the first heat perhaps nothing too special happened, but there was one thing that stood out very clearly: Alex Yee missed the battle. A large leading group formed on the bike with basically all the favorites together, but Yee was more than ten seconds behind. The Olympic Champion was lucky not to end up alone, but still he wasn’t able to close the gap.
He was also unable to do so during the run, the part where he normally makes a positive difference. Today it was different, because during the run his deficit actually grew bigger, eventually rising to seventeen seconds.
Heat 2 – French athletes on the attack
Vincent Luis, Dorian Coninx and Léo Bergere swam away with the three of them, but the small lead they grabbed was not enough to really break free on the bike, so the big leading group stayed together again. While Yee’s deficit continued to grow, it was clear that the Brit would no longer play a role in the battle for the podium. Meanwhile, Tim Hellwig crashed pretty nasty on the technical course, but he quickly got back on his bike and kept the connection with the leading group. During the run, it was mainly Wilde who set the pace, but still most of the men stayed together.
Heat 3 – Decided during the run
In the end, it was waiting for the final run before the final decision fell. Vasco Vilaca and Wilde were the fastest to leave T2; Wilde set the pace and that pace was visibly fast. Still, the New Zealander was uneasy about it, as he gestured several times for Vilaca to take over, but the Portuguese wasn’t listening to it and so did not comply.
Not much later it became clear why that was: Wilde was simply going too fast and from that moment on he took a minimal lead. No one was able to catch him and so Wilde eventually ran to victory. Bergere just passed Vilaca before the finish and finished second at two seconds. Vilaca finished third at three seconds.
