The path to the top is littered with cliff edges. It is so easy for athletes to fall by the wayside. Young promise not quite realised, young dreams slowly let go.
How does one become a world champion, let alone a four-time world champion?
When we look at the career of Flora Duffy, it is as instructive as it is inspirational. The path that led her to an Olympic gold medal and two Commonwealth Games titles was by no means straightforward. There was nothing easy or obvious about it. At every turn, a simpler road existed, a path to being a good athlete as opposed to an iconic one.
How did she do it? How did Duffy become the premier triathlete of her time?
The early promise
2006 was the year Duffy made her first steps onto the world stage. A 2nd place at that year’s World Junior Championships in Lausanne bore all the classic hallmarks of a young talent coming through.
That came after she finished 8th at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne earlier in the year. To go with that, she also made her World Cup debut as a Junior. She even managed a World Cup top-10 in Hamburg, where she finished 9th.
The following year, in 2007, Duffy won a bronze medal at a Pan American Cup and came 5th in the Lisbon World Cup.
To virtually all observers, her talent was clear. While her career did not yet promise endless riches, she had certainly signalled that she would be one to watch.
The fallow years
Far from enjoying an easy road to the top, Duffy did not top-10 at a World Cup or WTCS race again until 2011, where she placed 9th at WTCS Beijing.
In the years between, she experienced a DNF at the 2008 Beijing Olympics after a bike crash. Following Beijing, she missed the entirety of 2009 as she stepped away from the sport and enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder. Once in Boulder, she knew she had the option to return to the sport and eventually she did.
Duffy won another bronze at a Pan American Cup in 2010 and also finished 8th at the World U23 Championships that year, which marked her final year of eligibility.
Generally, she produced a series of respectable performances across 2010 and 2011. Otherwise, her results did not quite match those of her Junior days.
Duffy’s early twenties, then, were not marked by the success she has seen since. That is by no means abnormal and a lot of athletes struggle with the step up to the Senior level, particularly as they develop personally as well as physically. Not everything can happen at a rush and the development of others cannot always be a yardstick for your own growth.
Moreover, mental health is incredibly important. Duffy’s decision to step away after the Beijing Olympics, in hindsight, was an extremely smart decision as it gave her the space to recalibrate before returning to world of elite triathlon.
An important lesson to draw from these years is that sometimes life does not follow the easiest path. Sometimes it is not a straight progression to the top. Sometimes there will be setbacks along the way. The early years of Duffy’s career are a good example of how patience is required for any athlete to succeed, both athletically and personally.
Off the beaten track
Duffy persevered through the fallow years and in 2012 her efforts were rewarded as she won her first World Cup in Huatulco. By now, the World Cups were the second tier of global competition behind the WTCS. Nevertheless, the win was an important staging point in her career.
She also achieved a WTCS top-10 in 2012, finishing 6th in San Diego.
However, her London Olympics did not go as hoped and she finished 45th a little over a month before her 25th birthday.
When an 8th place followed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games – the same result as an 18 year old eight years prior – it seemed something was amiss. Duffy, though, had already made a significant change by that point.
She took the decision to take on a new form of triathlon in the guise of Xterra and cross triathlon.
In 2014, barely three weeks after the Commonwealth Games, Duffy won the silver medal at the World Cross Triathlon Championships in Zittau. In addition, that year she won the first of four straight Xterra world championships.
Gradually, Duffy became a dominant force in the off road world.
Perhaps the main lesson of this period is that sometimes change is necessary to move forward. In moving to a new discipline, Duffy learned how to become a serial winner.
In the realm of the WTCS, though, the promise of old had yet to be fulfilled. However, her rise in the off-road sphere preceded a re-emergence in the short distance world after her first Xterra title.
A new paradigm
March 2015. The venue is WTCS Abu Dhabi.
Carolina Routier of Spain pushes the pace in the water and stretches the field to breaking point. A small group of women are able to hold on, including Lucy Hall of Great Britain however on the bike the field soon comes together.
Having swam some 32 seconds slower than Routier, Duffy is in the main pack. It is then that she seizes the moment.
In hindsight it is funny to see where new trends start, how what may appear innocuous snowballs into something much bigger.
That day in March 2015, a small group, including Hall, Duffy and Lisa Norden opened a significant gap to the field. Duffy had the fastest bike of the day, recording a split of 30:55.
Meanwhile, defending world champion Gwen Jorgensen lost 52 seconds on the bike but would run a 15:57 split to Duffy’s 17:23 to take the win. At this point, though, the win was not the key. What mattered was that even though Duffy was outrun by twenty women in total, she held on for bronze.
And not just any bronze. Her first WTCS medal.
Neither Duffy’s swim nor her run were quite at the levels they would become. Her bike, however, was another matter. Crucially, she had found a paradigm to succeed.
5th place at WTCS Gold Coast and 4th place at WTCS Stockholm followed. Then, in a more rounded performance, she won a silver medal at WTCS Edmonton. That being said, Jorgensen was not present in Edmonton so the dynamics were a little more relaxed.
Not all races worked out for Duffy. She also had finishes of 27th in Cape Town and 17th in Chicago. But after her first two medals, 2015 could be counted as a success.
At the age of 28, her perseverance had begun to pay off.
In many respects, 2015 showed the value of flying in the face of established wisdom. Jorgensen had emerged as the supreme runner in the field at this point. Some athletes attempted to match her on the run, but nobody really could.
Duffy could not simply mimic what others were doing and hope for the best. She had to find her own way to win.
The battle for the crown
It was the following year, in 2016, that the full assault on the WTCS crown began.
Early season 4th place finishes in Abu Dhabi and Gold Coast got Duffy off to a good start. At WTCS Cape Town, Duffy recorded the fastest swim, better even than Routier, however the pack came back together on the bike. Nevertheless, Duffy held on for 3rd with an improved run.
Bronze became silver at WTCS Leeds. Rather than the change of the medal, the most important aspect of Leeds was that Duffy launched her most audacious attack yet. After exiting T1 almost together, Duffy took the fight to Jorgensen, the now two-time defending world champion, and rode 1 minute 29 seconds faster than her rival on the bike.
However, Jorgensen mowed her down on the run, out splitting Duffy by 2 minutes 24 seconds to win by 51 seconds.
While the bravery of the move has to be commended, there is something else to highlight. Without the help of Lucy Hall and Jessica Learmonth, there is a good chance Duffy’s move would not have stuck. As much as we now consider Duffy’s aggressive riding her way of racing, it would not have come about with others being prepared to do the same.
The importance of others, whether within races or beyond, cannot be discounted when taking on great challenges.
After Leeds, Duffy went on to win in Stockholm with a consummate all-round performance in the absence of Jorgensen.
Shortly after, though, she watched on in Rio de Janeiro from 8th place as Jorgensen won Olympic gold.
Another 4th place followed, this time in Edmonton as three Americans not called Jorgensen out-ran Duffy. As a result, the season came down to the final race in Cozumel.
Jorgensen could still win the world title, which would have been her third in a row to go with her Olympic crown. Duffy, meanwhile, was hunting for a first title to go with her Xterra wins.
Duffy was good in the water and exited in third place. Jorgensen, though, was within striking distance.
Throwing caution to the wind, Duffy committed wholeheartedly on the bike. The result was an electric split, the fastest of the day in 1:02:23, helping her to gain 59 seconds on Jorgensen on the bike alone. With Duffy already on the run course, Jorgensen arrived in T2. Memories turned to Leeds. Thoughts turned to Jorgensen’s coronation in Rio.
This time, though, Jorgensen did not come storming back on the run.
This time, Duffy held firm.
After two years, the paradigm finally paid full fruition. Duffy beat Jorgensen. She won the race and with it her first world title. Perhaps more importantly, she had reshaped the character of the women’s race in the WTCS.
The road to a first world title was not an easy one for Flora Duffy and there are a litany of lessons to be taken from it.
There were several points at which she could have settled for less or stayed in the happy hunting grounds of Xterra racing. Duffy’s story is truly one of how promise hinges upon hard work and dedication.
Through every setback she held firm. Through every failure she dusted herself down and returned to the fray.
The rest, as most will know, is history.
