Wilde claims ‘bittersweet’ maiden win

Hayden Wilde has claimed a ‘‘bittersweet’’ maiden World Triathlon Championship Series win in Leeds, admitting fault for a bike crash which dumped British stars Jonny Brownlee and Alex Yee out of their home race.

A superb run powered the New Zealand Olympic bronze medallist to victory yesterday in the second round of the series, going one better than his seriesopening second-place finish in Yokohama last month.

But despite the elation of a breakthrough performance, the 24-year-old cut a contrite figure afterwards, as he put his hand up for blame for the incident on the bike which saw Olympic champion

Brownlee suffer a broken elbow and which also ended the day of fellow Kiwi Dylan McCullough.

‘‘It’s a bittersweet victory to be honest,’’ Wilde told BBC One after the race. ‘‘As it’s my first victory I’m actually really stoked. But there was part of that collision which was probably my fault.

‘‘I just really want to apologise to Jonny Brownlee and Alex Yee, and my team-mate [McCullough] who I actually collided into a little bit. On the uphill there was a lot of speed going through there and we just caught that momentum and the guys went down behind me.

‘‘I wanted to race those boys properly, not like that, I just feel real gutted to be honest. I know Jonny was pretty mad on the side, he gave me some words, that’s fair enough, I’d do the same. Just absolutely gutted for those guys.’’

Aside from that incident, Wilde was happy with his performance, after a decent swim which had him 16 seconds off the pace, then thinking his legs were gone on the first hill of the bike before he found some momentum and went for it on the second lap.

Then on the hilly 5km run Wilde charged hard to catch leader Leo Bergere as soon as possible, and after doing so halfway through, the Kiwi then stormed home to post the fastest run time of the day (14min 11sec) by some 22sec, and finish in a time of 53:18, seeing off Bergere by 10sec.

Wilde is now second in the series standings ahead of the third round in Montreal, Canada, in a fortnight.

GETTY IMAGES New Zealand’s Daryl Mitchell hits out on the wayto190 against England on day two of the second test at Trent Bridge. It’s time for the Black Caps batter to shake off any tags as the ‘son of’ former All Blacks coach John, inset.