Coninx began the day fifth on the World Triathlon Championship Series rankings, but was crowned world champion with his victory.

At last year's Championship Finals in Abu Dhabi, Olympic bronze medallist Wilde and silver medallist Yee led the rankings and were strong favourites to claim the title, but France's Léo Bergère won the race to take overall gold.

Yee and Wilde had led going into this year's Series finale too, the Briton around 57 points clear of his closest challenger and nearly 215 points ahead of Portugal's Vasco Vilaça in third.

Yee had to finish fourth or lower and Wilde third or lower to open the door for those chasing them, and both found themselves around 45sec behind the leaders after the 1,500 metres swim from the Tirantes Bridge.

Wilde was part of the chase group on the 40 kilometres eight-lap bike course, but his hopes took a huge blow with a 15sec penalty for dropping his swim hat on the pontoon after exiting the river.

He finished the bike more than 30sec adrift of the leaders but with his 15sec penalty to serve.

Yee found himself in trouble having been unable to make the chase group, and he entered the second transition onto the 10km run more than 2min off the pace.

From the lead group, American Morgan Pearson made the first major move, but could not sustain his challenge and fell out of contention on the penultimate lap.

Coninx joined fellow French athletes Bergère and Pierre Le Corre, and Germany's Tim Hellwig and Lasse Lührs in a group of five for the final lap.

Hellwig led for much of the final lap, but in a dramatic sprint to the finish line it was Coninx who forced him to settle for second and Le Corre third, with all three clocking 1hour 42min 22sec.

Coninx could not hide his surprise at taking the world title.

"I thought it was impossible," he admitted.

"I just wanted to focus on my race and do a good race to end a nice season, but it’s way better than expected."

Bergère finished fourth at 6sec further back.

Wilde hauled himself to ninth place with a 29min 57sec run including his penalty, but it was only enough for second overall with 4,112 points to Coninx's 4,238.

Bergère placed third for the Series with 4,003, and Vilaça fourth on 3,737 after finishing 14^th in Pontevedra.

Yee finished fifth overall on 3,640, placing 29^th in 1:45:02 in the final Championship Series race of the year.

Earlier in the day, Germany's Simon Henseleit was crowned men's under-23 world champion with a time of 1:45:18, beating Baptiste Passemard of France by 12sec and The Netherlands' Mitch Kolkman by 24sec.

The World Triathlon Championship Finals is set to conclude tomorrow with the women's elite and under-23 races and the Para triathlon mixed relay.