The Toulouse result has him sitting third overall on 38 points.
Wilde leads on 58 from Australian Matt Hauser on 41. Japan's Kenji Nener is fourth on 33 and Great Britain's Jonny Brownlie fifth on 32.
Wilde, Reid and fellow Kiwi Nicole van der Kaay (Reid's partner), who is 10th on the women's standings, are also members of the Sharks team who are leading the team standings.
Each round carries prize money — $35,000 to the winner down to $2600 for 10th — while overall series winners will each pocket $88,000, second place-getters get $61,000 and third $44,000 apiece.
The winning team collect $210,000 and there is also $26,000 to each of the top exponents overall in the three disciplines — swim, bike, run. Reid is sitting third overall in the swim section while Wilde leads the cycle and is second in the run. Reid has received special mention in the news section of the SLT website
“For all the talk of Hayden Wilde and Matt Hauser, Tayler Reid has not attracted a lot of attention but is having a fantastic series,” it says.
“Consistent and measured performances have seen him quietly climb his way to third in the overall leaderboard and with a shot at second place, as well as being in contention in the swim discipline leaderboard.
“While Reid's big swim is a major factor in his success, you don't get to third in the series without being able to back it up across all disciplines.
“He still needs a big performance in Neom to secure a podium spot, but one big race would produce the biggest achievement of his career.”
Reid's Gisborne-based coach and former professional ironman Stephen Sheldrake is delighted with his performance so far.
“It's a prestigious series. You get selected for it and it features the best athletes in the world . . . being third (overall), he would take that any day of the week.”
Sheldrake, who is also van der Kaay's coach, says the series is “a tough gig”.
Three of the races were held over consecutive weekends and while the final race is not for another three weeks, Reid is back in action this weekend in a World Triathlon Championship Series race in Sardinia, Italy.
“It's a fine line between training and recovery between events,” says Sheldrake, who thinks the SLT, with its variety of formats, is “cool”.
“It's different week to week. It favours consistency which is how Tayler has ended up in the top three.”
The SLT, promoted as “the world's fastest triathlon series”, features three different types of races.
Triple mix features three “stages”, each comprising a 300-metre swim, 4.6km cycle and 1.6km run. The order of the disciplines is shuffled for each stage. Stages 1 and 2 are mass starts while for stage 3, each competitor goes off from the fastest to slowest combined times over the the first two stages. The eliminator is three stages with a pre-defined number of athletes eliminated after each stage.
The enduro, the most brutal of all, is three non-stop races with no breaks — that's nine back-to-back swim/cycle/run disciplines.
Sheldrake has been at the forefront of Reid's progression from top amateur to the professional ranks and is confident he can finish the series strongly.
“He's matured (as a triathlete). He understands the requirements. He's becoming more rounded and knows all those little bits that can make a difference.”
