Flora Duffy won the Women’s Elite Title at the 2nd annual XTERRA Asia-Pacific Championship race at Callala Beach in Jervis Bay, New South Wales, Australia.
After a wet Friday that soaked pre-riders and runners, the clouds and rain gave way to bright sunshine Saturday morning and near-perfect racing conditions, except of course, for the slick roots and muddy trails that the rain left behind. It turned intermediate routes into technical tracts and clean racing kits into mud-splattered ensembles.
Duffy took most of the drama right out of the women’s race right from the start with another dominating performance on her way to her 10th XTERRA Championship win in 11 tries since the start of the 2014 season.
The 27-year-old two-time Olympian had the fastest swim (almost two minutes over Barbara Riveros), the quickest bike (more than two minutes over Riveros) and the second-best run split (less than one-minute behind Riveros) to take the tape in 2:36:40, a full three-minutes in front of Riveros.
Of note, Riveros was also the runner-up to Duffy at last year’s XTERRA World Championship and the pair are amongst the very best on the highly competitive ITU World Triathlon Series.
“It was a tough day out there,” said Duffy. “I really wanted to defend this title, and it’s a lot harder defending. I seem to be the favorite no matter what. I wanted to attack the swim and nail the bike, ride the technical bits as best I could. I had a few issues out there, though, with a couple mechanicals and a little crash. It was super muddy. Then I just tried to run steady, and not push too hard. I’m really happy with how it went.”
Duffy, who was fifth at the ITU WTS race on the Gold Coast here in Australia last week, now heads back to her home-away-from-home in South Africa for next weekend’s ITU race.
“Flora is on fire, she’s very strong. I knew it. She’s racing good in ITU as well and I’m super happy for her,” said Riveros, who was in second the whole way but still had her share of misfortune. “I fell in the mud puddles, didn’t realize it was so deep, and I couldn’t get out of there. The guy behind was asking if I needed help getting out of there. But it was great, a beautiful course, and I’m happy to have raced here and qualify for XTERRA Worlds.”
Behind Riveros Jacqui Slack was in third and in control, Suzie Snyder was fourth, and Lizzie Orchard ran her way into fifth.
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