Two men stand at the top of the
Maurice Lacroix World Triathlon Rankings heading in to Saturday’s 2022
Championship Finals Abu Dhabi, separated by the finest of margins in both
points and title potential.
New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde heads that
list of names, Alex Yee of Great Britain right with him just as he has been all
season, but now with just one race to go.
From WTCS Yokohama to Montreal to
July’s Commonwealth Games, in terms of straight head-to-heads this campaign,
when both have been able to finish, Yee has always come out on top. But points
are precious however they land, and Wilde came through for excellent golds in
Leeds and Hamburg, results that, coupled with his silvers in those famous Japan
and Canada races, mean the Kiwi has given himself potentially crucial daylight
over his main rival as the two Olympic medallists chase their first world
titles.
It being a new-look Abu Dhabi course,
neither will know the real-race intricacies of the nine-lap, 40km bike that
follows a hot 1.5km swim. Off the bikes and out of T2, there will be four laps
on foot and the mouthwatering prospect of 30 minutes of sheer tension, as a
10km grind in the heat ultimately decides who will become our 2022 World
Champion.
As ever, you can watch it all play
out live and on demand over at TriathlonLive.tv, starting at 3pm local time on
Saturday.
The final countdown
With those points in the bag, Hayden
Wilde has been notable by his absence from the Series since that WTCS Hamburg
gold back in early July, electing to miss both Cagliari and Bermuda and head to
the desert early.
As well as becoming more acclimatised
to the surroundings, he’ll have also been growing ever more eager for race day
and, with temperatures likely to be up into the 90s, he must resist the
temptation to go too hard too soon despite the knowledge that gold or silver
and he becomes World Champion.
It was right here in the Abu Dhabi
heat that Alex Yee scored his first Series podium, a now-trademark run to
silver behind the mighty Mario Mola. That was back in March of 2019, heralding
the arrival of another exciting young athlete into the fray just as Vincent
Luis was starting to exert a stranglehold over the men’s racing.
Yee then had to be patient in his
progress, but in the run up to a delayed Tokyo 2020 he began to shine, and
since that double-medal Olympic dominance he has looked every bit the
champion-in-waiting. A minor hiccup by his high standards saw him finish fifth
in Bermuda meaning he now needs the safety net of at least one athlete between
himself and Wilde if he is to take the title.
The chase for third - or more?
For Leo Bergere and Jelle Geens,
their outside chances of what at first may seem an unlikely world title
turnaround could be aided by a number of external forces. Vincent Luis was back
to his very best in Bermuda and, with his own title aspirations beyond the
realms of probability if not possibility, he may look to work with his
compatriot to break away just as they did in Leeds only with Dorian Coninx and
Pierre le Corre in addition this time.
That possibility may be dictated by
what is happening further behind them in the water if Wilde and Yee emerge
further back than they would like but with the likelihood of major bike
powerhouses Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden coming out close by.
Collectively likely to do everything
they can to bridge up, that effort becomes a tougher proposition if swim
specialists like Matthew Hauser and Jonathan Brownlee are also flying on their
forks up front early on in the bike or even a returning Henri Schoeman.
Add in the run power of Brazil’s
Manoel Messias, Antonio Serrat Seoane (ESP) and Jawad Abdelmoula (MAR), the
pressure pot of the big occasion and the mid-afternoon mercury rising, and it
all adds up to an explosive 2022 world title decider.
Men’s 2022 Championship Finals
Saturday, 26 November from 3pm local
time
Watch on TriathlonLive.tv
For the full start list, click here.
ABOUT WORLD TRIATHLON
World Triathlon is the international
governing body for the Olympic and Paralympic sport of triathlon and all
related multisport disciplines around the world, including duathlon, aquathlon,
cross triathlon and winter triathlon. Triathlon made its Olympic debut in
Sydney 2000, with a third medal event, the Mixed Team Relay, added to the
programme at Tokyo 2020, while para triathlon was first added to the Paralympic
programme at Rio 2016. World Triathlon is proudly committed to the development
of the sport worldwide, with inclusion, equality, sustainability and
transparency at our core as we seek to help triathletes at all levels of the
sport to be extraordinary.
www.triathlon.org
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