Hayden Wilde has followed his Ironman 70.3 world title with another win on the French Riviera, taking the Ekoï French Riviera T100 Triathlon at Saint-Raphaël and Fréjus just six days after he was crowned half-distance world champion in Nice. Fellow New Zealander Kyle Smith finished third, completing a remarkable comeback from illness, injury and, the day before the race, being hit by a bus.
Wilde won in 3 hours 6 minutes 24 seconds, 19 seconds ahead of Belgium’s Jelle Geens, RNZ reported. Smith crossed the line 24 seconds behind his countryman after Geens sprinted past him in the final kilometre. The race was held on Saturday 19 September, European time, about 60 kilometres along the coast from Nice, where Wilde won his first Ironman 70.3 world title the previous weekend. NEWS WIRE covered that win here.
It was the second year in a row Wilde has won in Saint-Raphaël. In 2025 he beat Geens and Great Britain’s Sam Dickinson on the same course, according to World Triathlon’s race report. This time he also recorded the fastest run split in the field.
The T100 series races over 100 kilometres of swimming, cycling and running, shorter than a half Ironman but longer than the Olympic distance on which Wilde built his career. The swim was tight. Slowtwitch counted 15 men within 17 seconds of each other as they left the water, and Wilde was well placed.
“I think I was like fourth out of the turn of the swim, which was a really positive start and gives you momentum,” Wilde said after the race.
He chose to skip putting on socks in the first transition to save time in a crowded field. The bike leg stayed bunched, and Slowtwitch reported that 16 men were still within 2 minutes 40 seconds of each other when they reached the run. Wilde had to work to get there, with Smith and Germany’s Rico Bogen breaking clear on the bike.
“Kyle and Rico went off the front and I had to put in a big move. Unfortunately, my power meter wasn’t working all day, so I was riding blind,” Wilde said, according to World Triathlon.
Riding without data followed a similar mishap in Nice, where he lost his watch at the start of the half marathon and ran the rest of the race without it. Bogen was later given a penalty for improper water bottle disposal, which was withdrawn soon afterwards, and he faded to 13th.
Geens began the run with a lead over Wilde. The New Zealander said he simply ran his own pace and reeled the Belgian in. Along the way he found himself running beside Smith, and the pair struck a deal.
Wilde said he told Smith, “I’ll pace you until a certain point, and then we’re not friends.” He then made his move and pulled away to win.
Slowtwitch’s results show Wilde ran 58 minutes 9 seconds for the run leg. Smith ran 58 minutes 35 seconds, three seconds quicker than Geens, but the Belgian, one of the best sprinters in the sport, timed his finish to take second. Australia’s Jake Birtwhistle was fourth and Germany’s Lasse Nygaard Priester fifth.
For Smith, third place meant far more than a podium. In 2022 and 2023 he suffered a mystery illness that Slowtwitch reported was eventually traced to mould in his apartment in Girona, Spain. His 2025 season ended with a broken collarbone after a bike crash, and this year he was diagnosed with coeliac disease and battled gut problems. He had finished 13th in his last T100 start, in Singapore.
“To say four months ago, I was sort of in the hospital battling stomach issues and honestly, probably staring down the barrel of retirement because I just never thought I’d come back to this level,” Smith said, according to World Triathlon.
He said Wilde had been one of the people who got him through, along with former Ironman world champion Jan Frodeno and his wife Emma. Smith moved to Andorra to train and began working with Wilde there. The two are a week apart in age and have raced each other since childhood.
Then, the day before the race, Smith was hit by a bus after training and came off his bike. He said he spent four hours on the physio table and woke on race morning sore and a little dizzy.
“I felt like I needed this result and nothing was gonna stop me, not even getting hit by a bus would stop me!” he said.
Wilde said it was good to see his friend back near the front. “We’re from the same region in New Zealand, and we used to race each other in cross-country and, and track races, and then obviously switched to triathlon after the off-road stuff,” he said.
The win gives Wilde a commanding lead in the T100 standings, known as the Race to Qatar. He has 96 points, with Birtwhistle second on 59 and Priester third on 49. Athletes count their best three results plus the championship final in Qatar. The next men’s race is in Saudi Arabia on 27 November.
Slowtwitch noted Wilde has won all but two of the T100 races he has entered across the past two seasons. One exception came in Dubai last year when he rode an extra lap of the bike course and still finished eighth, and the other was a third place in San Francisco earlier this year, while he was still struggling with what was later diagnosed as lung inflammation. A win in Saudi Arabia would put him in a very strong position to take a second T100 world title.
His longer-term focus remains the Olympics. The 29-year-old won bronze in Tokyo and silver in Paris, and Slowtwitch reported that he was unsure whether he would defend his 70.3 world title next year because his attention will turn to qualifying for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
Two wins in six days on the Côte d’Azur, and a New Zealand one and three in the second of them, make this one of the better fortnights for New Zealand triathlon in some time.
Can Wilde win gold in Los Angeles after bronze and silver, or should he stay with the longer races where he is now so dominant? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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