Flora Duffy has revealed that an ongoing knee injury will keep her out of full training and racing for the foreseeable future.
In a video posted on Instagram, Duffy said that the injury first arose after the Commonwealth Games in July last year. Afterwards, it really flared up at the start of September.
Following a scan in September, tearing in the patella tendon in her knee was discovered. To address the issue, Duffy received a PRP injection into her tendon (Platelet Rich Plasma) to help it heal. Duffy noted that the injection itself was painful and she had to take particular care with training for ten days afterwards.
Thereafter she had to be careful with her training load until the end of November when the WTCS season ended. In the months between September and November, she therefore did not run a lot. She took on some sessions here and there but otherwise had to be careful with the intensity to manage her knee.
Her speed at WTCS Bermuda and WTCS Abu Dhabi last November is even more impressive in hindsight given the injury challenges behind the scenes.
Duffy admitted that she was “amazed I got through the end of the season”. However in continuing she made her knee worse.
At the start of this year, in January, the knee flared up once more and she has since struggled to calm it. She mentioned her knee as part of the reason for skipping WTCS Abu Dhabi in March. Since then, other issues have arisen in her knee alongside that of the patella injury.
Right now, Duffy and her team are trying to figure out how to best rehabilitate her knee while also training. For large chunks of this year, she has not trained at all. At this point she is swimming but mainly pull and without pushing off any walls. She has also added “a tiny amount of cycling”.
“I would like to be back on the race course in August for the Paris Test Event,” she said, “but I just need to see how my rehab goes, how my training goes and take it week by week.”
With the 2024 Olympic Games as her overarching goal, she will prioritise her recovery in her pursuit of another Olympic gold. Hopefully her injury trouble can be resolved soon. Such persistent injuries can be often be extremely difficult mentally and so Duffy’s decision to share her experience will likely help plenty of athletes with similar injuries holding them back from fully engaging in their sport.
As a consequence of Duffy’s injury, a new WTCS winner is all-but guaranteed this year.
With Katie Zaferes, Vicky Holland and Gwen Jorgensen currently not regulars in the WTCS (although in Zaferes’ and Jorgensen’s case that could change), there are no active former Series winners in line to compete for this year’s title. As Georgia Taylor-Brown won the single day world championships in 2020, there is no guarantee of a first-time world champion.
In the ongoing absence of Flora Duffy, though, the changing of the guard will begin this year.
