Alex Yee takes Hayden Wilde again at Olympic preview event in Cagliari

As they did a year ago, the two men considered to be the favourites for the gold and silver medals at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer – Alex Yee (GBR) and Hayden Wilde (NZL) – duked it out on the run, wth the British star stamping his status as the gold-medal favourite thanks to an impressive win.

As seems to be the norm in the men’s races, the swim and early portions of the bike hardly separated the contenders, with 24 men quickly setting up in a lead group through the first few laps. Things started to break up a bit on the third lap as Wilde opened up a bit of a gap with France’s Leo Bergere. The huge effort to bring back the gap would drop some of the lead group, with things continue to whittle down as the men worked their way through the technical bike course in the rain – by the time they hit T2 the group was down to 18.

Yee led the way out of transition, with Wilde not far behind as the pair quickly set the stage for a 10 km road race for the win. By the end of the first loop the two were nine seconds clear their closest competitor, Hungary’s Csongor Lehmann, with the rest of the chase group another 10 seconds back. The lead just continued to grow as the two powered away in front, with Wilde doing everything he could to push the pace and put pressure on Yee. The Brit handled all the pressure with ease, sitting on the Kiwi’s shoulder. As they neared the finish line Yee made his move, pulling away for yet another huge win over his rival and confirming he’ll be the gold-medal favourite for Paris. Lehmann hung on for third. Norway’s Vetle Thorn managed to take the five-man sprint for fourth ahead of Portugal’s Ricardo Batista, France’s Pierre Le Corre, Canada’s Charles Paquet and Australia’s Luke Willian.

You can see the full results here.