Olympique Daily: Wilde has heart

Seine almost sinks chances, a sevens serenade, and a slow pool ($)

Friends… and rivals. Getty Images

Three stories from a dramatic couple of days in Paris.

If you were lucky enough to watch the triathlon last night, what you saw was one of the great modern mano-a-mano sporting rivalries played out.

Okay, yes, if  you’re being cruel you could say that seeing as Alex Yee invariably comes out on top of Hayden Wilde, then it’s not really a rivalry per se, but that would be missing the point entirely. Both athletes pushed each other to extraordinary places on the streets (and fast-flowing river) of Paris last night as the seemingly ill-fated event finally started in bizarre circumstances.

The whole exercise started in Monty Python-esque fashion. For weeks organisers fretted, rightly, about the water quality of the Seine, which forced the postponement of the men’s race by more than 24 hours. It turned out that water flow had a far bigger say in proceedings than water purity. It was the decisive factor in the women’s race and nearly killed off Wilde’s hopes in the men’s.