FLORA DUFFY AND HER GREAT CHALLENGE IN PARIS 2024

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FLORA DUFFY AND HER GREAT CHALLENGE IN PARIS 2024

Jun 15, 2024

This Olympic Games event will be totally different for Flora Duffy, because it represents the defense of the women’s individual title she won in 2021 in Tokyo, where Paris 2024 offers her one of the most special stages in France to be able to leave some great footprints on Olympus.

Representing Bermuda, she is the first Olympic champion of her country in any sport, and this makes her worthy of being influential among the athletes of her nation, the other triathletes of the region and even of other continents.

I can’t quite believe it.
Olympic Champion. pic.twitter.com/P6C0ZpaP6x
— Flora Duffy (@floraduffy) July 27, 2021

Flora talked to Centro Caribe Sports for the HUELLAS project, where she reflected much of her life as a high performance athlete and her gratitude to the sport that has given her so much glory throughout her career.

Paris 2024 has a very different flavor for her, not only because she will be defending her Olympic title, but also because she will be accompanied by two other triathletes from Bermuda, who qualified for these Olympic Games: Erica Hawley and Tyler Smith, being the first time that this Caribbean island has three athletes in this sport in Olympic events.

Hawley and Smith will be in their first adult Olympic Games, with experience of the Youth Olympic Games, when both competed in the second edition, held in Nakin, China, in 2014.

For Duffy, one of the three special reasons surrounding this upcoming Olympic Games is that there will be three Bermudian triathlon athletes competing at Paris 2024, in addition to the defense of gold.

Another special reason for Flora is that her fifth Olympic Games represents “the last dance” for her, who also earned an Olympic diploma at Rio 2016, placing eighth in the individual event.

HOW WAS THE JOURNEY FROM TOKYO TO PARIS?

The journey of an athlete who has managed to be at the highest level of competitiveness, commits her even more to maintain her position in the following years, and therefore, the obstacles are greater.

The Olympic champion recounted that she has had a road with ups and downs, complications that she has been able to overcome, and that at the same time have made her strong.

“This road to qualification and the final preparation for Paris has been quite difficult, because I have had a knee injury that has put me to the test,” confessed the silver medalist of the Central American and Caribbean Games, Mayagüez 2010.

Full of uncertainty during the 2023, Flora hopes to arrive in optimal conditions for July 31, the date on which the women’s triathlon will be competed, to seek to climb again to the Olympic podium.

Defending 2020 Olympic Champion, Flora Duffy, is heading to her 5th Olympics!#Olympics #Paris2024 #Triathlon #FloraDuffy #TeamBermuda pic.twitter.com/pZ9GtHMySO
— NOCBERMUDA (@NOCBERMUDA) May 27, 2024

WE TRAVEL TO TOKYO WITH FLORA

When asked about her Tokyo 2020 experience after winning the gold medal, Flora revealed that at first she can’t remember what was at the top of her mind.

Flora Duffy won the gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in 2021, leaving Georgia Taylor-Brown of the United Kingdom with silver and Katie Zaferes of the United States with bronze.

HER TRACES AND LEGACY…

Having her teammates Tyler and Erica qualify is a great motivator for her, especially since all three are at the same training base in the United States in preparation for the Olympics.

With four Olympics under her belt and a fifth on the way, Flora Duffy has left a big footprint for future generations of Bermudians and is working on her legacy with the results she achieves in international events.

**Flora Duffy wins the 2022 World Triathlon Championship Series Hamburg in the individual event. (Credit: World Triathlon)**

Duffy is also an Olympic champion and medalist at the 2010 Mayaguez Regional Games, the 2015 Pan American Games, as well as a two-time Commonwealth Games champion and four-time ITU world champion.

The women’s triathlon is scheduled for July 31 starting at 3:00 a.m. Bermuda time, 8:00 a.m. in France.

^{_{Written by Noel Werleman}}

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