Flora Duffy outguns the armoury of Georgia Taylor-Brown to win WTCS 2022 Abu Dhabi
Flora Duffy dominated the World Triathlon Championship Series 2022 Abu Dhabi to become the first women to win four World Triathlon Championships. Try as the British might, not even lining up a British heavy pounder in Georgia Taylor-Brown could outgun the armoury of the invincible Bermudian.
The other power-nations lined up their artillery in an attempt to defeat the unyielding Duffy in the shape of the phenomenal bike beast of USA, Taylor Knibb and her compatriot, the pocket dynamo Taylor Spivey. The Dutchwomen Maya Kingma and Germany’s Laura Lindemann were looking to outmanoeuvre the Olympic and Commonweath Games Gold Medalist as were the young French guns in Cassandre Beaugrand and Emma Lombardi
Georgia Taylor-Brown a master of race tactics and would have mapped out a Plan A with a contingency plan B to unseat Duffy’s race dominance, but Flora Duffy, is a master of her own tactics and destiny and exited the water first, unfazed by Britain’s Tayor-Brown and Beth Potter being hot on her tail.
Out onto the bike section, 5 laps of speed over the 20km circuit and into the battle comes the bike-beast Taylor Knibb (USA) as a front group of nine formed to push down the power. Whilst no individual could make a break the sheer ferocity of power being laid down saw Germanys Lindemann fall off the pace to join the chasing pack of two in USA’s Spivey and Kasper. Into lap six GB’s Beth Potter was having issues with a thigh strain and was next to fall off the leaders.
More drama was to unfold on lap seven which saw Knibb’s wheel slide out taking Kingma with her, Lopes and Germanys Meissner just being able to avoid trouble and stay with Duffy and Taylor-Brown up ahead. Now there was a front pack of four.
As the four leaders racked their bikes in transition it was the two title-chasers of Taylor-Brown and Duffy heading out together for what appeared to be building for an epic head-to-head over the 10k run course.
Over the first 5k Taylor-Brown up the pace to create a gap between her and Duffy but the gap did not increase, and Duffy was always in sight of Taylor-Browns heels. On the third lap it was clear that Duffy had paced herself and was now ready to make her as she accelerated up the small hill to which Taylor-Brown had no answer. From then on in it was a magnificent display that saw her take the winning tap in a time of 1:53:24 to underline Duffy’s position as the greatest woman triathlete ever.
Georgia Taylor-Brown came in second to take silver and secure her second place in the overall World Triathlon Championship Series title. Running through to an unexpected bronze and final podium place was Germanys Lena Meissner whose beaming smile spelt out the thrill of the moment for her.
Luke says: As the only woman ever to win four World Triathlon titles this Friday afternoon in Abu Dhabi, I think it can safely be said that Flora Duffy has earned her place within the dynastic order of Triathlon, and it can only be a matter time before her legacy will honoured in World Triathlons Hall of Fame.
