Tyler Smith hailed the best performance of his career after sealing a thirteenth-place finish at the Commonwealth Games today.

Among the stellar field in the Elite Men’s race, the Bermudian exited the water from the 750 metres swim in 8min 53sec, clocked 26:00 on the 20-kilometre bike course and completed the 5km run in 16:04 for a total combined time of 52:14.

Olympic silver medal-winner Alex Yee, of England, claimed the first gold of the Games in a winning time of 50:34, ahead of New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde — who was handed a ten-second penalty for removing his helmet too early at the end of the cycle leg — in 50:47, with Australia’s Matthew Hauser completing the podium in 50:50.

“This is the best performance of my career for sure,” said Smith, who improved on his 21st-place finish at the last Games in Gold Coast, Australia.

“It’s not often you can finish a race and say that, but as a senior this the best performance I’ve ever had.

“To go from 21st to thirteenth has taken four years of hard work and the support of so many people.

“There is no medal for that thirteenth but to come out here and deliver a result is really special to me.”

The 22-year-old found himself in contention for a top-ten finish heading out of the final transition in seventh.

However, despite ultimately losing ground on the run, he was content with his efforts, having endured difficult preparation in the build-up to the Games, suffering a broken wrist just eight weeks ago.

“That’s about as well as it could have gone today,” he added.

“There was just so many setbacks over the past two years that the goal here was just to get to a major Games again and have a clean race against some of the best guys in the world.

“I was just really happy to deliver as much I could. I was in the battle for the top ten but it will probably take another block of running for me to get back to that level and contest for that sort of result.

“But after a foot injury and breaking my wrist eight weeks ago, I’m just really proud of myself for overcoming all of that and delivering a clean race.”

Smith will now be aiming to take this performance into the mixed team relay on Sunday when he joins Dame Flora Duffy, Erica Hawley and Tyler Butterfield.

“We know Erica is in good form, Flora Duffy is the best female athlete of all time and Tyler Butterfield is just so professional and experienced,” he said.

“That’s the biggest thing about this team and why it is so good to go to a major Games with Tyler and Flora because they’ve been doing this for so long.

There are things that no other coach could tell you that they can; they’ve been through this so many times.

“I joked the other day that they have 76 years of triathlon experience between them, so we have as an experienced team as you can get, and then myself and Erica are just super hungry for it.”