Will Beat You Now

A decade ago, Flora Duffy nearly quit the sport. Now she’s short course’s most dominant athlete on- and off-road with four ITU world titles— two in draft-legal tri, two in cross—and four XTERRA World Championship titles to her name. Kelly O’Mara gets an inside look at the charitable phenom’s long journey to success.

PHOTOS MICHAL ČERVENÝ

TRIATHLETE // SEPTEMBER 2018 TRIATHLETE.COM 46 47 ’m in a cab from the Bermuda airport, on my way to meet ITU world champ and four-time XTERRA world champ Flora Duffy in her hometown, and my cab driver has some thoughts. “If she wins [at the Olympics] in Tokyo, she’ll be the most famous Bermudan ever,” he argues. Apparently, she’s currently in contention with a historic soccer player and maybe a sailor from the 1950s. Or so says my cab driver, who dives into the intricacies of ITU competition, unprompted.

But this was in January, back before she won gold at the Commonwealth Games, before she was awarded an Order of the British Empire, and before she won the first-ever ITU World Triathlon Series race in Bermuda in front of the biggest crowd most Bermudans had ever seen. “It made the America’s Cup look small,” recalls Neil de Ste. Croix, the head of the Bermuda youth tri club. “Everyone was chanting her name.” When I meet Duffy in January, passing joggers cheer for her, and waiters want her autograph. But now, after the Bermuda WTS race in April? Now, it’s at another level. De Ste. Croix sends me an email from a friend: Her niece dressed up as Duffy for a school project. team takes, which shows her hamstring new kids’ triathlon program in Bermuda, The prompt was: “Dress as Made in Bermuda curls and planks and ball crunches are called Tri-Hedz. De Ste. Croix started something that makes you just a little sharper and more focused the group with three others to bring proud to be Bermudan.” I am here to tell you: Flora Duffy does than mine. She’s concentrating just a triathlon to the local kids. They’d meet Even if Duffy doesn’t 40-second side planks timed with an little harder. on Saturdays at Clearwater Beach. win at the 2020 Olympics iPhone just like everyone else. We ride Duffy doesn’t come back to Bermuda Fifty kids would be out there picking in Tokyo—and odds are three hours at a moderate pace, to one that much anymore. She primarily splits up cones on the bike and practicing she will—she’s already end of the hilly stone-walled island and her time now between Stellenbosch, transitions. Mostly, though, they were the first woman from back. (A random guy riding a rusted bike Bermuda to win a medal with a basket jumps on the back of our South Africa, where her husband and having fun. “Always, the focus was on at the Commonwealth pack, and she just laughs. “That’s a very former XTERRA pro, Dan Hugo, is from, fun,” says de Ste. Croix. Duffy wasn’t Games and the first person Bermuda thing to happen,” she says.) and Boulder, Colorado, where she went much different from the other Bermuda ever to win four XTERRA We run tempo repeats on a flat trail—or, to college. But it was in Bermuda where kids then. She’d grown up biking around world titles. She was the rather, I jog and she runs four minutes she originally learned the skills that would the island. (Cars in Bermuda are limited most successful triathlete on, 90 seconds recovery, and then 6 x make her a world champion decades later. to one per household.) She ran in school in 2017, by far, losing just 2:40 on, with 80 seconds recovery. She “It’s all in the timing,” says her dad, and swam with the local swim club, just one race since her surprise pads in bare feet around the Bermuda Charlie, who works in the insurance like all her friends in Tri-Hedz did. win at the 2016 ITU Grand National Training Centre, which is the industry, as do her two brothers. It just There were competitions all summer Final and topping the prize fancy name for a small basement gym so happened there was a kids’ triathlon around the island, and once per year money list last year. Yet, with boxes, barbells, and basic weight group when she was young. It just they would travel to Chicago for a big after dropping out at the machines. The security guard takes a so happened ITU was getting its start race—all 50 kids, with their parents and Beijing Olympics 10 years selfie with her. when she was a junior racing. It just so coaches, in matching t-shirts. ago, the girl from a tiny Yes, this is an easy week for her, happened she learned hard lessons over There must be something to this island in the middle of the but these are basic standard workouts the years, slowly progressing bit by bit. island triathlon program, though. Atlantic Ocean almost quit everyone does. The only difference is Maybe it’s just in the timing. Bermudan Tyler Butterfield, who took the sport completely. in the video the Specialized marketing When Duffy was 7 or 8, there was a fifth at Kona in 2015, came out of the

TRIATHLETE // SEPTEMBER 2018 TRIATHLETE.COM 48 49 Duffy gotstronger , but she also got messed up. “On the one hand, I was getting faster,” she says. She took eighth at the Commonwealth Games and second at the World Juniors race. She started racking up top-10s at ITU World Cups. “But on the other hand, it was a very destructive path to get there.” At first, it started as just trying to eat healthier, “but I’m a rather intense person,” she says, and soon she was cutting out so many calories her same era as Duffy. And this year body couldn’t handle it. She had Bermuda, population 65,000, an eating disorder; she was getting took fifth in the mixed relay at the injured. Her body was so calorie- Commonwealth Games. There deprived, she even started putting is an abnormal number of good on weight; her body was trying to triathletes for such a small place. compensate as she struggled to “It’s definitely weird that Bermuda’s find a balance. tiny and has this tri club that’s “It was a really, really rough thriving,” Duffy says. time for me. I hit rock bottom in At first, the kids’ summer tri camp Beijing,” she says. “My body had had might have just been for fun, but enough.” At the Beijing Olympics, Duffy likes to win. At that annual race she DNF’d. in Chicago, she’d battle fiercely with Dejected, beaten up, and worn a set of American sisters. Most of her out, she went back to Bermuda, intent on doing nothing related to friends eventually moved on, but she triathlon. She worked at a local tourist didn’t. “It was light fun, but I was quite shop and bummed around the island. an intense kid,” she says. She trained She was done as a serious athlete. with older youth and it was clear early WHEN on that she hated to lose, says de Ste. Croix. “She still has the same look on PEOPLE her face when she races.” (See above.) Steps to Becoming In 1996 and 1997, a few years into summer tri camp, there was a World a World Champion ASKED ME, Cup race held in Bermuda. Watching I am intent on visiting the school it, Duffy decided she could do this. Duffy attended through her ‘WHAT DO “When people asked me, ‘What do freshman year of high school to you want to be when you grow up?’ see if I can find some secret in the YOU WANT I’d say, ‘I want to be a pro triathlete, building. The pool at the Warwick world champion, and gold medalist.’ Academy has been renamed the And they’d look at me like, ‘Oh shit, I Flora Duffy Swimming Facility, but it’s TO BE WHEN think this little girl really means it.’” just a 25-meter pool, on the side of a To make that happen, when she pastel colonial building, like most of YOU GROW was 16, she decided she needed to the buildings in Bermuda, with stone go to Mt. Kelly, a boarding school arches and large staircases—except in England known for its swim in a less intimidating way than UP?’ I’D SAY, program and its small four-person the oldest school in the Western triathlon squad. Due to a limited Hemisphere sounds like it should be. ‘I WANT TO number of higher education options It’s a Saturday morning when I bike on the island and Bermuda’s by, and there are kids playing soccer strong ties to Britain, many young and parents driving minivans. BE A PRO Bermudans leave for boarding She came back here last year school or college, but not all of to dedicate the pool and give a TRIATHLETE, them pick a school focused on speech. This year, she set up The sports. “It was a decisive moment,” Flora Fund with the Bermuda Duffy says—and it took her triathlon Community Foundation to support WORLD to a new level. other young athletes—and there are English boarding school is a lot of young athletes showing up CHAMPION, different than Bermuda, though. at Tri-Hedz wanting to be just like It’s not island life anymore. It’s not her. It’s no surprise Bermudans can primarily about having fun. “It was swim; they’re surrounded by water AND GOLD posh to me,” she remembers. and temperate climates. What’s MEDALIST.'

TRIATHLETE // SEPTEMBER 2018 TRIATHLETE.COM 50 51 harder to understand are the group long time for me to actually be good The gist of the story is that won her first WTS. to the best in the world)—with rides that meet every week to hammer again,” Duffy says, but it was all with a Know Thyself she doesn’t love red meat, We’re all born with a too much to lose. “She’s very around 20-square miles. different perspective: “I love it, and this but she’s learned she has certain amount of potential, calculated,” Hugo says. It’s After Beijing, Duffy spent months on is what I want to do,” she says. If you’re drinking wine with to eat some since she was and then have to choose finding the space in between the island, unsure what to do next. “It To most people, Duffy was a solid ITU her, Duffy does not seem anemic back in 2013. She’s how to maximize it. If Duffy the desire to simply race as was really hard to watch,” says her dad, racer, but not dominant. It wasn’t until like an intense person. “She’s relearned her running form had quit before now, says hard as she can and making to see her struggling untethered. the end of 2016, when she beat recent very much not classic Type after stress fractures. She’s Henderson, she never would the smartest decision that’s That October, in 2008, she applied gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen at the A,” Hugo says. She can turn it learned how to bounce back have known how good she helped her get to the top. to the University of Colorado, Boulder, ITU Grand Final in Cozumel that the on and off. The last night in after crashing at the London could be. “There’s something She studies tape now, without ever having been to that state; triathlon world really took notice. What Bermuda, we go to a fancy Olympics. She missed the kind of beautiful in that,” says before and after her big she’d known people who had gone there had changed? I asked her parents. They restaurant on the water. beginning of 2017 because Hugo, of the journey. She’s races—of the race the year and liked the combo of education and had one word: Dan. She orders the tempura of a stress reaction in her hip. built a small team around her before, of the course, of the jumbo shrimp and a plate outdoor opportunities. Plus, the mountains Dan Hugo and Duffy met in Boulder She skipped a few more races now, of running specialists other girls—to figure out of sushi, and then we put sounded like a nice change. She started back in 2010 “and she didn’t pay me any this year with a foot injury. and cycling coaches, but she where the gaps could form. her in charge of ordering school in January, already 21 and older attention,” he joked. She’s learned lessons over mostly travels to races by Is that a common thing other wine. Turns out, if you’re than most of the freshmen on campus. But they started hanging out and ran and over again, bit by bit. herself or with Hugo. Some people do? I ask. “I don’t know a world champion, you’re She didn’t have a solid plan, “I just knew I in the same training groups. By 2013, “It seems like this whole days it seems like she can’t if it’s a thing people do,” Duffy not really a heavy drinker. had to do something,” she says. they were dating. Because they were six-, eight-year journey to get lose, and some days it seems says. “It’s a thing I do.” IT TOOK She laughs about trying to In Boulder, “no one cared who spending time together, she started to where I am now,” she says. like it’s just a question of If you watch a lot of decipher wine descriptions, you were,” she says. Everyone there riding her mountain bike more. She When she was still building staying healthy one workout WTS races, it can seem A LONG recommends Dave Chappelle did some kind of activity, so she raced an XTERRA and “got annihilated,” back up after graduating, at a time. sometimes like she just rides Netflix specials, and talks started biking with the cycling team. she says, but it qualified her to the world there was a WTS race in She was supposed to race as hard as she can, takes U.S. politics. At one point, It was competitive, but not unhealthy championships. And she got enough TIME FOR Cape Town where she led the mountain bike at the all the risks to get as much she explains the difference competitive. better by then—practice, practice, most of the bike, but then Commonwealth Games, advantage as she can on between a jail and a prison. She studied sociology and joined a practice—that she took third at the ME TO her nerve failed her and she alongside triathlon, but she technical courses. She must She tells a story how after a sorority, Alpha Ki Omega. If she wasn’t a XTERRA World Championships. “Her wound up finishing third. The made the calculated decision be fearless, have some inner workout once, in Boulder, she serious triathlete anymore, why not be learning curve seems really steep,” Hugo next race, in Stockholm, she not to. It was too high a drive the rest of us don’t. ACTUALLY ate two giant hamburgers. a fun college student instead? It lasted says. The technical practice helped, but went all in, came off the bike risk—she’s not that good a But that’s not the case. She’s Can you imagine that? I tell three months. “It was a life epiphany,” it was also just a happy, fun time. with a 30-second lead and mountain biker (not compared not particularly risk-seeking. BE GOOD her yes, I can. she says. “I thought, ‘This is not me, who She graduated, and it was a make-or- She tried riding one of the am I trying to be? You are a triathlete.’” break moment to commit full-time. The World Cup mountain bike That’s where the other Boulder couple went to Stellenbosch to train in AGAIN." courses in South Africa and advantage comes in. the winter, and Hugo urged her to take bailed out of a few of the “She called me in January 2009 at her natural potential to the next step. trickiest lines. Riding as hard some point and said, ‘I think I met you “He wrote me this letter,” she says. as she can in a race is a on a plane,’” says Neal Henderson, who It was titled, “Flora’s Steps to Being a choice she makes based on would wind up coaching her for nine Multiple World Champion,” and it was understanding her strengths years. They had met briefly on a flight to just that: a list of things to do to become (and weaknesses), and Beijing, where he was coaching Taylor world class. “It’s comical now how much analyzing the courses. Phinney at the Olympics. She wanted of it was elementary,” he says. Things like “It’s what I need to do to to work with him now that she was in get enough sleep, eat properly, have a be on the podium, so I just Boulder—at first, just in cycling. massage once per week. But his point do it,” she says. It took her She started out just riding local races. was: You could be the best, if you dot years and a lot of mistakes (Though, let’s be clear: In her version of your i's and cross your t’s. Don’t be so to learn to believe in herself, having fun, she took fifth at collegiate intense that you get an eating disorder, and to know that if she rides nationals in the omnium and was but be a little more focused than a college as hard as she can at the right moment, she can be named to the College All-Star team.) But kid who’s just doing this part-time. the best in the world. soon she was asking Henderson if she In fact, one of the bigger arguments could come to some swim sessions with the couple had back then was Hugo his other athletes. When she wanted to begging her to get regular massages, and start running, it was only 20 minutes at she just couldn’t see the point. “It baffled a time, no structure. “It took months,” me,” he says. he says, before she built up to running a The list sunk in, though, and she The Flora Fund few times a week. started working her way through it. In May, Duffy announced she’d “The biggest thing was providing an “It made a pretty profound impact on created a fund with the Bermuda environment where she had a lot more me,” she says. “Someone had thought Community Foundation to choice and a lot less pressure,” Henderson through these things and thought I provide local athletes with recalls. He wanted her to train next to could be world class.” funding for expenses including his other world-class athletes and to see In 2014, she won the XTERRA World equipment, travel, training there was a way to be the best without Championship. Yes, the mountain biking fees, event registration, and breaking yourself. helped her technical skills, but the win coaching. “This is a small start,” In 2010, she completed her first helped her confidence. “I realized, ‘You she says. “But I hope to grow the triathlon since the Olympics, the Hy-Vee can compete at this level,’” she says. The foundation into a meaningful World Cup and came in top 20. There next race after that, the first ITU WTS and sustainable community asset were ups and downs after that—fifth race of 2015, in Abu Dhabi, she grabbed that positively impacts the youth at one race, 40th at the next. “It took a her very first WTS podium. of Bermuda.”

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