Flora Duffy wins WTCS 2021 Abu Dhabi with six Brits in top ten.
Was it ever in doubt? Flora Duffy dominated the World Triathlon Championship Series 2021 Abu Dhabi race with six Brits in the top ten places. Try as the British might, not even lining up 8 British heavy pounders 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 Rachel Klamer a former Abu Dhabi winner was also gunning for the win as was Germany’s Laura Lindemann who was looking to cement her No1 world ranking following her win in WTCS Hamburg. The French were also looking to outmanoeuvre the Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champion with their young guns Cassandre Beaugrand and Lea Coninx.
The British Performance Team are masters of race tactics and would have mapped out a Plan A with a contingency plan B in an attempt to unseat Duffy’s race dominance. And there was no shortage of talent in the British team to do just that in all three disciples with the strength of Jess Learmonth and Sophie Coldwell in Swimming, Taylor-Brown and Lucy Charles-Barclay in Biking, Beth Potter and Non Standford in running and all coupled with the versatility of Vicky Holland and Sian Rainsley. No shortage of domestiques in that bunch, if required.
And to prove a case in point it was Sophie Coldwell and Jess Learmonth who exited the Yas Marina 750m swim first with Lucy Charles-Barclay, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Sian Rainsley and Vicky Holland all exiting within 7 seconds of the leaders.
But Flora Duffy, is a master of her own tactics and destiny and exited the water just 8 second behind the swim leaders unfazed by any British dominance.
Out onto the bike section, 5 laps of speed over the 20km circuit and into the battle comes the bike-beast Taylor Knibb (USA) and IRONMAN 70,3 World Champion Charles-Barclay with Coldwell, Learmonth, Taylor-Brown and, of course, you guessed Flora Duffy to make the break-away front pack.
The pack of six soon became five as Charles-Barclay in her debut Abu Dhabi race got dropped still finding the technical elements of cross-over from long-course to short course a bridge to far.
The five front pack entered T2 a minute ahead of Charles-Barclay and with the main chase pack even further behind. Out onto the 5k run it was Learmonth out first with Duffy right behind her with Coldwell and Taylor-Brown in contention. Taylor Knibb could not maintain the pace and began to slip back leaving the the front group of 4 to contest the podium places.
The chasing pack of running was forming and it was the Brits of Potter and Standford with Frenchwomen Beaugrand showing their group a clean pair of heels. But the gap was too big to make the inroad needed to make the podium. It was clear this was going to be a race to the line between Duffy, Learmonth, Coldwell and Taylor Brown.
Duffy stepped up the pace and looked to be drawing away but Taylor-Brown was not finished and drew back up to her shoulder as if to fire a warning shot that race was not over. But even Taylor-Browns great display of fortitude could not dent Duffy’s steely determination as she just dipped into her armoury of running routines by upping the pace again, to draw away from her rivals towards the blue carpet and winning tape with the fastest run of the day. Gold for the ‘invincible’ Duffy, Silver for Taylor-Brown and Bronze for Coldwell with Learmonth just missing out coming in 4th.
What a year for Flora Duffy, winning Bermuda’s first Olympic gold medal and the 2021 World Triathlon Championship Series title for a record-equalling third time. Now she moves onto competing in the Xterra World Championship in Kapalua, Maui, on December 5. Any bets on the outcome?
I think it can be 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.
