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Alex Yee was 14 seconds behind his great friend and rival, New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde, and about to begin the final 2.5km lap of this Olympic triathlon when a familiar voice called out from the side of Pont Alexandre III. “Anything can happen, mate!” shouted Alistair Brownlee.
Yee was a wide-eyed 14-year-old in Hyde Park when he watched Brownlee win Olympic gold at London 2012, and had talked this week about picking up that legacy in Paris, in the first Games without a Brownlee brother for 20 years. For all the carb gels and isotonic drinks downed through an endurance race, there is nothing quite as powerful as the undying faith of someone we admire.
“It was a moment of belief,” Yee said. “It’s pretty special when somebody does that.”
Yee kept going, clinging on to Wilde’s shadow in the beating heat, gradually closing the gap until the Kiwi could feel someone on his shoulder. Wilde had poured everything into his solo burst and he had nothing left to give: “cooked”, he admitted, by the Parisian sun.
Yee passed him with 200m to go, adding a little acceleration on his way by, one last emptying of the tank. Wilde couldn’t find an answer, and a few moments later they were collapsed beside one another on the finish line, gasping for breath, Wilde patting his conqueror on the back. “He’s just a top bloke,” Yee said, with an Olympic gold medal hanging around his neck.
They have duelled many times on the World Triathlon circuit, with Yee often coming out on top in a sprint finish, and Yee won silver to Wilde’s bronze in Tokyo. Here, Wilde tried to create a different dynamic, surging clear and seemingly hurting his rival, but the result was just the same.
“I was riding a bad patch from 2 to 6km [of the 10km run],” Yee admitted. “Maybe in my head, I thought that second place, with the guys closing quite rapidly behind me, maybe that was the best thing for me. But I just didn’t want to give up on myself. I said to myself with 3km to go, I just want to give myself one more chance.”
This race was not meant to take place in viscous heat but its postponement on Tuesday due to unholy levels of bacteria in the Seine meant it began after the women’s race, nearly two hours later than its original 8am start.
Wilde lives in Spain and had been getting up at 5am for the past two months in preparation for the early start that never happened. “It is what it is,” he shrugged. “We’re elite athletes and we have to adjust to the circumstances, like the heat. I did feel it in the last kilometre.”
Yee set a 4am alarm on Monday night not knowing whether his Olympic event would go ahead the following day. He opened his phone to find a WhatsApp message from his coach telling him the race was off and went back to sleep. Then, on Wednesday morning, he got the message: we’re racing.
Twenty minutes before the race began, all 56 bikes were lined up in the transition zone except one. Yee breezed out last, found his spot at the far end of the bridge and began assembling his things. He wiped each tyre clean with his fingers, then carefully positioned his bike in its stand. He laid down his trainers like they were made of glass, then stood, looked back and moved them ever so slightly. Then he strode back to the athletes’ room inside the Grand Palais.
He wrestled with “imposter syndrome” in his early career but in Paris, he carried the air of a man walking into his own living room. At the pre-race introductions, Yee was the only one wearing a jacket to stay warm until the last possible moment, he was the only one smiling, and he was the only one with the physique of a Tour de France champion, lean but strong, like he was about to climb Alpe d’Huez rather than dive into the Seine.
He had focused on improving his swim over the past year and kept in touch with the early leaders in the water, emerging 18th, 27 seconds back, and hopefully without any stomach bugs ahead of the mixed relay. “You’ve got to have trust in the organisation that they’re going to put you in safe conditions, and I’m sure we’ll find out in due time if that’s correct,” he smiled.
His first change was quick, overtaking rivals through the transition area and exiting with a running jump onto his bike as he slipped bare feet into white cycling shoes.
The roads had dried since the carnage of the women’s race where wet patches had caused several hard falls, and Yee took turns at the front pulling the 13-strong lead bunch as Wilde chased. With three laps to go, Wilde joined the front in a group of 32 riders and they reached the transition zone together in a chaotic pack.
Yee’s teammate and close friend Sam Dickinson had helped guide him through the cycle, and Dickinson applauded as Yee ran off into the distance in the first kilometre. Wilde quickly caught up and overtook with an aggressive pace in the rising heat, but he could not resist a motivated Yee in the final throes. Inspiration is a powerful thing.
