Kiwi triathlon silver medallist Hayden Wilde has revealed to 1News he was sick with E. coli-like symptoms in the 48 hours after the men’s triathlon last week.
Wilde, who crashed on his bike in the mixed triathlon relay today, said he was one of two people in the team who got ill.
The individual races last week were delayed by a day because of unsafe readings of the Seine river water, an issue that’s been prevalent in the build up to – and during – the Olympics.
“There was a bit of sickness within the team 48 hours after the race,” Wilde said.
“[After] 24 hours it cleared up pretty quick, I was just lucky that I only had some E. coli-potential sickness for 24 hours.
“The power was still there on the bike [today], the power was still there on the run, I felt great racing – it was just an unfortunate day out there.”
The New Zealand team of Wilde, Nicole van der Kaay, Dylan McCullough and Ainsley Thorpe finished 14th of of 15, with a time of 1h 30min 23s.
Gold medallists Germany were nearly five minutes faster.
Wilde said the day after his silver medal-winning performance was an uncomfortable one.
“I ran for an hour and there were a couple of loo stops within that hour. Then went to the pool, I was pretty depleted, I was real tired. I was lucky I was able to eat really well. That night I was feeling 80% better.
“I think we were just lucky there were 5 days between the races, it gave us time to recover.”
The Belgium team pulled out of today’s race after one of its athletes fell sick following the women’s triathlon last week, although it’s not been confirmed whether that was due to swimming in the Seine.
The IOC said it was “not aware of any particular case” where athletes had fallen ill and said some symptoms being talked about are “not completely unusual for competing triathletes”.
Paris 2024 spokeswoman Anne Descamps said World Triathlon made a decision late yesterday to go ahead without the most recent water sample results to give athletes more certainty.
Last week men’s event was postponed with just five hours’ notice.
“[One test is] not the only criteria used to decide whether or not a competition will take place – it’s a various set of measures,” said Descamps.
She said based on previous tests leading up to race day, reading the trends of bacteria levels and weather conditions all play a role.
“We have a very, very rigorous process with different laboratories used in order to have several measures and everything is done in a transparent way,” she said.
Wilde is hopeful he won’t fall ill after his latest swim in the Seine.
“I’ll be fine, it’s like catching Covid, you get a bit of an E. coli immune boost! I’ll be going to bed with peace of mind.”
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