Tayler Reid

Tayler Reid made a bold move when he started triathlon. Rather than starting out with a local event, finding he was good and working his way up, he made his first race the national championships. Tayler grew up in Gisborne, New Zealand, and was more interested in swimming than triathlon. His pool swimming background helped him into surf lifesaving. But aged 11 he decided to give triathlon a go – and went straight to the national championships. Tayler didn’t even have a bike and had to borrow an old one from a friend. He also didn’t have any kit so raced in his swim shorts.

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It was certainly a sign of things to come that, despite all these issues and no real training at all to speak of, Tayler won the title. It took a few more years for Tayler to decide to really focus on triathlon but when he did success came quickly. Splitting his time between Gisborne and the New Zealand High Performance centre in Cambridge helped accelerate his development and in 2017 he produced a first World Cup podium at Karlovy Vary to set up a real breakthrough year.

In 2018, Tayler was part of the New Zealand team that took a bronze medal in the Mixed Relay at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast alongside Andrea Hewitt, Nicole van der Kaay and Ryan Sissons. He backed that up by winning the Under-23 World Championship on the Gold Coast.

Tayler collected a gold at the Under-23 World Championship Mixed Team Relay in Lausanne in 2019 and earned a spot at the Tokyo Olympics, where he finished 18th.

He made his Super League Triathlon Championship Series debut in 2021 and produced top ten finishes in Jersey and Malibu as well as impressing with his swim prowess where he challenged Matt Hauser for the discipline leaderboard.

2022 saw Reid return, and one of the most fiercely fought battles for the swim leader board in SLT history, between Rid, Hauser, Chase McQueen, and South African new comer Jamie Riddle. Reid finished 2nd in the swim leader board in the end, behind Riddle, and was 5th in the overall Championship, having enjoyed top 10 finishes in 4/5 events.

Tayler is coached by Stephen Sheldrake and is studying for a business degree at Massey University.