How did Alex Yee conjure up that magical surge to Olympic triathlon glory? Team GB star reveals all about his dash to gold at Paris 2024
Itâs a finish which will go down in Olympic history. In triathlon history.
But how did Alex Yee find those hidden reserves to conjure an triathlon gold medal at Paris 2024?
His arch rival Hayden Wilde looked to have the race in the bag with literally just a kilometre to go, as Yee seemed set to repeat his individual silver from Tokyo â though that was far from certain with a dual-pronged home challenge just in behind.
But then, in a matter of strides the race was transformed. Wilde was suddenly treading water and Yee was doing very much the opposite.
In what seemed an instant, he closed down what had been a 14-second gap at the end of the third of four run laps and surged past Wilde with around 400 metres to go.
There was no response from the Kiwi as Yee went on to follow fellow Brit Alistair Brownlee into Olympic immortality.
âI was in quite a bad placeâ
And afterwards, speaking to Eurosport, he said: âI just have so much respect for Hayden and how much he made me dig for that, fair play to him. Heâs an amazing athlete and for me, almost two laps in, I probably thought maybe silverâs on the cards.â
Yee had been to the fore throughout â higher up in the swim than Wilde and then working on the bike to try and maintain the front groupâs gap to the pack containing Wilde and Tokyo Olympic champion Kristian Blummenfelt.
But it all came back together on the run and Yee wondered if he might pay the price.
He explained: âI was in quite a bad place. I really wanted to do a swim, bike and run. Maybe I did a bit too much swimming and biking today. That meant that the run was really hard and I gave it everything I had.â
âOne last chanceâ for Alex Yee
In a jaw-dropping finale he was somehow able to turn the race on its head and talking through that process, he explained: âMany people have told me, âyouâre going to go through a bad patch in a race, no matter how perfect or bad it isâ. So I think for me, I just rode that wave and said, one more try and letâs see if we can do it.
âI owed it to myself to give myself one last chance. And with about 2k to go, I thought Iâd just give everything I had â I was saying âanything can happenâ.
Alex Yeeâs reward for an incredible performance [Photo credit: Wagner Araujo | World Triathlon]
âIâm still just that normal guy who works hard at my sport and loves what Iâm doing.
âIâm just so proud that I was able to [do this] for my family, for everyone whoâs worked hard, my girlfriend Liv and so many more people than just me that have worked towards this.
âAnd, you know, this was our dream and Iâm the lucky one that gets to do it.â