Triathlon great Flora Duffy has won Bermuda’s first Olympic gold medal with a commanding performance.
The two-time world triathlon series champion enjoyed a perfect race on Tuesday at Tokyo’s Odaiba Marine Park, finishing the 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km race by herself in one hour 55 minutes 36 seconds.
It is Bermuda’s second Olympic medal, following a bronze at the 1976 Games.
The four-time Olympian and 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist finished a whopping one minute 14 seconds clear of Great Britain’s Georgie Taylor-Brown, who was left ruing a flat tyre late in the bike leg.
American Katie Zaferes was 13 seconds behind Taylor-Brown for the bronze.
The Australians, once a nation to watch in triathlon at the Olympics, had another dirty day.
Emma Jeffcoat was well-placed in the first chase group after the bike, but faded on the run.
She finished 26th at 7:21, while Ashleigh Gentle and Jaz Hedgeland were lapped on the run and did not finish.
Rain and wind delayed the start of the race by 15 minutes, meaning cooler conditions than the men’s race on Monday, but also greasy conditions on the bike.
But there was no repeat of the false start fiasco in the men’s race on Monday, with the photographers’ boat well away from the swim pontoon.
Russian Federation triathlete Anastasia Gorgunova and New Zealander Ainsley Thorpe were casualties of the greasy conditions, crashing out early in the bike leg.
British triathlete Jess Learmonth set a cracking pace in the swim and she led a lead pack of seven out of the water that included all the medallists.
Jeffcoat led the chasers at 41 seconds, but the front group were well-organised from the outset on the bike and built a solid lead.
Taylor-Brown had a disastrous flat tyre on the last of eight laps of the flat but technical bike course, leaving Duffy, Zaferes, German Laura Lindemann and Learmonth in front at the start of the run.
Racing in her fifth Olympics, Swiss great Nicola Spirig drove the pace at the front of the 10-rider chase pack and the gap to the lead was a manageable 1:01 at the bike-run transition.
But the 2012 Olympic champion and 2016 silver medallist could not mount a charge in the last leg of the race and Spirig finished sixth at 2:29.
Jeffcoat stayed with Spirig’s group throughout the bike before dropping back on the run.
Australia will be a medal contender in Saturday’s triathlon mixed relay, a new Olympic event.
AAP
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