There was only one lap remaining when Alex Yee recognised a voice in the crowd as he crossed Pont Alexandre III Bridge shortly after noon on Wednesday.
With each stride, he was falling a little further behind and closer to that old familiar sting, but the words rang in his ears.
‘Anything can happen, mate,’ was the shout from the other side of the railing, and who knows if it was issued with the reassurance of a friend or the wisdoms of a man with far more than most.
Either way, it was Alistair Brownlee, the two-time Olympic triathlon champion, and what an imagination he must have. Because Yee was second at that point and the deficit to Hayden Wilde was 14 seconds on the clock and 90metres of Parisian tarmac.
That being 90m and only 2.5km to run it down. Those being 2.5km after the 7.5km already ticked off in 29 degrees of heat and a 40km bike ride in that same furnace and a 1500m swim in the human waste and strong currents of the Seine.
Alex Yee took silver in Tokyo three years ago but upgraded to gold in Paris on Wednesday
Yee is the Olympic men’s triathlon champion after winning the men’s race in Paris
Yee caught New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde (left) in the final stages of a thrilling race
The Team GB star celebrates a stunning triumph as he banished his Tokyo 2020 demons
An exhausted Yee is seen at the finish line after surging past Wilde in dramatic fashion
And this being Yee, Tokyo silver medallist, we were all sure it was going wrong again.
Done on the run by Kristian Blummenfelt in 2021, done on the run by Wilde in 2024, and due to sleep in tosses and turns until Los Angeles in 2028, his 26-year-old mind trapped in the memories of a brilliant New Zealander getting smaller and smaller in the distance.
But my goodness, if Brownlee has an optimist’s heart, then Yee has a donkey’s kick. He kicked himself into gear and he kicked his way into reach.
With 1500m to go he had taken the lead down to 12 seconds, but that was not nearly enough. In fact, he was now closer to third, held by Leo Bergere, who had the whole of France yelling him on.
But, as Yee told us later, he had already decided in his mind that he wouldn’t try to protect a position. No, he was going to take a better one or shatter his body trying. So he kicked even harder, which is also when Wilde, his occasional room-mate on the triathlon circuit, was slipping under the waves of lactic acid.
Wilde’s pace began to slow, Yee’s crept up, and then, somehow, brilliantly, the guy in blue caught the man in black on Quai d’Orsay with 400 or so metres to go. Wilde searched his legs for answer they couldn’t find and Yee’s remembered he was once a teenager who clocked faster track times than Mo Farah.
By the time Yee rounded the bend to the bridge, the site of Brownlee’s shout seven minutes earlier, he was staring at clear air in the direction of one of the most beautiful finish lines on the planet.
Wilde and Yee speak after a gruelling men’s triathlon race on the streets of Paris
The Team GB athlete couldn’t believe his triumph as he crossed the line six seconds clear
Fans cheer the British triathlete on as he competes in the men’s triathlon at the Paris Olympics
When he got there, in the shadow of Grand Palais, he didn’t have the energy to even raise a fist but he had pulled it off, this 26-year-old winner of an Olympic gold medal, six seconds clear of Wilde and 10 ahead of Bergere.
Was it the most improbable heist of these Games so far? Tom Pidcock might have a word to say on that. But for drama, for death-or-glory spirit, it was truly magnificent, as was the sight of Wilde collapsing next to his mate for a silent hug. Sport at its very finest.
‘I don’t really know what to say, I’m a bit lost for words,’ he said a while later.
‘At 5km in the run I was going through a real bad patch. In my head, with the guys closing quite rapidly behind, maybe I thought second was the best thing for me. But I just didn’t want to give up on myself. I said with 3k to go I just want to give myself one more chance. I owed it to myself.’
And how he returned the investment.
In Tokyo, he attempted to have us believe the mixed relay gold was balm for the individual one that got away. But in Paris he had claimed the real deal.
He had journeyed to France as the favourite, but it was brutally tough. Part of that meant adapting to the one-day postponement brought on by disgusting water conditions.
Wilde would later speak of being thrown off rhythm by the delayed start and there is no denying he got off to a ropey beginning. After leaving the Seine, he was 36sec behind Yee, who in turn was 28sec short of the lead. No matter, both of these men excel on the bike and more so on foot.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW
The pace took its toll on one athlete in particular as Tyler Mislawchuk was seen vomiting at the finish
Yee was behind Wilde but somehow kicked on and surged clear to take a stunning gold
The ride would send Yee to the front, but it is necessary here to mention his team-mate Sam Dickinson. With no one willing share Yee’s strain at the front of a huge leading group of 32, it was Dickinson who sacrificed himself to get Yee to the run a fraction ahead of Wilde. Signing off in exhaustion, he waved his mate away.
We spoke to Dickinson later, and he said: ‘Have you seen the film “A Knight’s Tale”? When they send the knight off to joust, all of his squires behind him gee him up shouting, “Get in the cradle”. That was my job. I’m proud I could do it.’
He did it well. And maybe Brownlee played a part too, when that run got so tough. At the very least he was proven right – anything can happen.
And it did, in the shape of a superb athlete whose morning commenced in a filthy river and ended in the most amazing golden glow.
