Olympic Distance, Women

The women’s race was held one day after the men’s on the same circuit, but the weather had changed dramatically in the past 24 hours. The expected typhoon passed over Tokyo but hit the coast of Japan as only a light tropical storm and did not result in a postponement.

The favorites included the 2020 world champion, Georgia Taylor-Brown from Great Britain, and the 2016 Olympic bronze medallist, Vicky Holland. The 2021 top event of the World Championship series in Leeds was won by Maya Kingma, and 39-year-old Nicola Spirig Hug focused on winning her third Olympic medal after gold in 2012 and silver in 2016. The race started 15 minutes late due to pouring rain, and the conditions turned out to be extremely demanding, especially later on the wet bike track.

Shortly before the start Yuliya Yelistratova caused a scandal, when the Ukrainian was excluded from the race on suspicion of doping. During a control on 5 June, a prohibited substance was discovered, but only became known now. Yelistratova was temporarily suspended and not allowed to start. From the first moment Jess Learmonth was pushing the swim pace and led the field after the first lap of 950 metres. The Briton kept up the high speed and was also the first to get out of the water after the shorter second lap. Behind her were Summer Rappaport and Vittoria Lopes.

A large bike group formed after the transition. Several crashes on the slippery surface occurred in the early laps, especially while navigating tight corners. After the first lap of 5 km a top group of seven formed. Taylor-Brown now took the lead most of the time, with the leaders already more than a minute ahead of their pursuers, but Spirig-Hug tried desperately to bridge the gap. Right at the end of the bike phase Taylor-Brown suffered bad luck with a rear-wheel puncture, but she recovered to finish only 22 seconds behind the four bike leaders.

Out of the transition zone Duffy was about to take the lead, with only American Katie Zaferes close to her in the run. Laura Lindemann was third but soon lost contact. After the first of four laps Duffy was 17 seconds ahead of Zaferes who was comfortably second. Duffy continued to increase her speed, never looking back. At the beginning of the last lap Duffy was more than a minute ahead and easily won gold. The battle for second place was decided in the last lap with Taylor-Brown overtaking Zaferes, who took bronze.

For the British overseas territory of Bermuda, with only 64,000 inhabitants, Duffy’s victory was their first Olympic gold medal and only the second medal after bronze for boxer Clarence Hill in Montréal in 1976.