Earlier in the week, Hayden Wilde fired a warning shot ahead of the Paris Olympic Games as he clocked a 5000m personal best. Running on the track in Huelva, Spain, Wilde stopped the clock at 13:23.91. In doing so, he lowered his previous best time of 13:29.47 from 2021 by over 5 seconds.
Notably, his new best is not too far away from the Olympic qualifying time of 13:05. For an athlete juggling three sports, it represents quite the turn of speed.
Wilde had already demonstrated his form earlier in the year. Back in February, he clocked a time of 7:57.47 over the 3000m, missing his personal best by a little over a second. Later that month, he claimed the silver medal at the Napier World Cup.
In Napier, Wilde’s swim let him down but he nonetheless rallied on the run. A barnstorming 5km split of 13:52 lifted him through the field and was almost 20 seconds quicker than the race winner, Callum McClusky. With Wilde’s latest best time, it is fair to say his run is sharpening nicely ahead of Paris.
His Huelva performance also puts him ahead of his arch-rival Alex Yee in terms of track bests. Yee’s best time of 13:29.18 was set back in 2019 so it remains to be seen what he could throw down today. Over the 5km, though, Wilde is officially the faster athlete.
The pair will have their first match up of the season at the French Grand Prix in Fréjus this weekend before meeting again at WTCS Cagliari at the end of the month. Given Wilde’s running displays this season, should the two men exit T2 together, it will be extremely hard to bet against the New Zealander. As shown by Napier, though, his swim may just prove the critical piece of the puzzle.
