Minutes after finishing third in the Pan Am Games Women’s Triathlon Bermuda’s Flora Duffy, express her displeasure of the team tactics of some of the other competitors.
Duffy led out of the water clocking a time of 18:35, American Sarah Haskins was right behind clocking 18:37 and Pamella Oliveira from Brazil clocked 18:38.
Haskins decided to wait for her American teammates who were some 40 seconds behind, allowing Duffy and Oliveira to ride away. Haskins helped the chasing pack catch first Oliveira who could not sustain the pace of Duffy and then Duffy was caught with two laps to go.
Duffy decided to take one more shot at killing the legs of her competitors as she broke away on the final lap. With the end of the 40-kilometre bicycle section of the race, just before the transition to the 10-kilometre run eventually Gold medalist Barbara Riveros and Duffy edged ahead of the pack. She clocked 1:02.22 on the Bike Course.
Riveros, who won Silver at the 2011 Pan Am Games, entered the race as the field’s strongest runner and extended her lead with each lap of the 2.5-kilometre lakefront loop. She set a fast pace early, covering the first five kilometres in 16:50 and finished the race in 1:57:18.
Mexico’s Paula Diaz finish second clocking a time of 1:57:48 and Duffy had to dig deep on the run, at one point falling back to fourth, but she showed heart and determination in order to fight off the thoughts of the Americans catching her clocking 35:57 to finish with an overall time of 1:57.56.
Riveros’ win earned Chile’s first-ever Pan Am Games Gold Medal.
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