Three-time World Triathlon series champion and Olympic gold medalist Flora Duffy has had a trouble-filled start to her 2022 season. After finishing third at the first race of the 2022 WTCS season at Yokohama, she caught COVID and, while not fully recovered from the virus, she finished a depleted 7th at Leeds. Then her airline lost her race bike in transit so she could not start at Montreal.
Once she arrived at Hamburg for the 4th race of the season, Duffy had a decent swim start, but in T1, she left her swim goggles outside her transition box and was assessed a 10 seconds penalty which she had to serve during the run leg. Adding to her woes, Duffy had a very slow T2 which cost her another 5 or six seconds so she began the run at the end of the dozen-women front pack.
While Duffy is well known for her run strength, the final woman ahead of her was Beth Potter, one of the greatest runners in triathlon. Deciding to serve her bad housekeeping penalty over with, once Duffy served her 10 seconds at the start of her final lap, she was second to Duffy with 7 seconds to make up.
While her predicament might flummox most rivals, the Bermudian calmly proceeded to overtake Potter with 300 meters to go and finish the sprint-distance race with a race-best 16:17 5 kilometer run leg - 8 seconds better than Potter. Duffy in 58:37 gave her a 6 seconds margin over Potter and 16 seconds ahead of Lisa Tertsch of Germany. Duffy’s win was the 13th of her career in World Triathlon’s Olympic distance premier series for women.
This year Duffy is in pursuit of an historic 4th World Triathlon World Championship. Right now she is tied with Emma Snowsill with three ITU World Titles. But with a 3rd at Yokohama, 7th at Leeds, a scratch at Montreal she was 5th in the title race and 1,368 points behind leader Georgia Taylor-Brown coming into Hamburg. With this victory and Taylor-Brown passing on competing at Hamburg to better prepare for the imminent Commonwealth Games, Duffy will have a much easier task with Cagliari, Bermuda and Abu Dhabi left on the calendar.
Taylor Spivey of the U.S. took 4th place, 21 seconds behind the winner and defending Hamburg champion Laura Lindemann of Germany took 5th place, 23 seconds behind Duffy and 2 seconds behind Spivey.
World Triathlon – Hamburg
Hamburg, Germany
July 9, 2022
S 750 m / B 20k / R 5k
Pro Women
1. Flora Duffy (BER) S 9:41 T1 00:37 B 31:34 T2 00:29 R 16:17 TOT 58:37
2. Beth Potter (GBR) S 9:51 T1 00:35 B 31:29 T2 00:25 R 16:25 TOT 58:43
3. Lisa Tertsch (GER) S 9:45 T1 00:35 B 31:34 T2 00:24 R 16:38 TOT 58:53
4. Taylor Spivey (USA) 9:41 T1 00:37 B 31:36 T2 00:24 R 16:42 TOT 58:58
5. Laura Lindemann (GER) S 9:45 T1 00:37 B 31:31 T2 00:24 R 16:45 TOT 59:00
6. Anabel Knoll (GER) S 9:44 T1 00:35 B 31:33 T2 00:25 R 16:45 TOT 59:03
7. Maya Kingma (NED) S 9:48 T1 00:39 B 31:23 T2 00:22 R 16:56 TOT 59:06
8. Sian Rainsley (GBR) S 9:39 T1 00:36 B 31:40 T2 00:24 R 16:51 TOT 59:08
9. Nina Eim (GER) S 10:14 T1 00:35 B 31:38 T2 00:24 R 16:20 TOT 59:09
10. Emy Legault (CAN) S 9:55 T1 00:33 B 31:28 T2 00:24 R 16:53 TOT 59:11
