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Flora Duffy won the triathlon by more than one minute.
With Flora Duffy winning the women’s triathlon championship in Tokyo, Bermuda, with a population of only 63,000 people, has become the country or region with the least population to win gold medals in the history of the Summer Olympics.
At the age of 33, she has appeared in the Olympic Games for the fourth time. Among the 56 contestants, she was the first to cross the finish line with a time of 1 hour, 55 minutes and 36 seconds-better than the United Kingdom’s Georgia Taylor-Brown (Georgia Taylor-Brown) and the United States‘ Katie Saffeles ( Katie Zaferes) is faster than 1 minute.
In 1976, Clarence Hill won the bronze medal in boxing, which has kept Bermuda the smallest population medal area for the Summer Olympics, and now they have their first gold medalist.
“The pressure in the past five years is really too great,” Flora Duffy said.
“I definitely don’t encourage everyone to be the favorite of Olympic champions for five years. Of course it’s all worth it now.
“I think the whole of Bermuda is crazy, which makes everything more special. Yes, this is my dream, but I know it is beyond me personally.”
To understand how significant Duffy’s victory is, we can come to understand some background. The 51-kilometer triathlon event itself is farther than walking from one end of the Bermuda Islands to the other. The size of this island nation is 15 times smaller than that of New York City.
Duffy, who refused to represent the United Kingdom when he was a teenager, is no stranger to writing his name in the annals of history. She became Bermuda’s first champion in the Commonwealth Games in 2018.
She also said: “I am very proud to be Bermuda’s first gold medal athlete and the first women’s medal winner. I hope this can inspire everyone in my hometown. It is possible.”
Due to rain throughout the night in Tokyo, the start of Tuesday’s game was delayed by 15 minutes due to slippery roads, but as soon as the race started, Duffy had an absolute advantage in the first four laps and then dominated the game all the way.
The moment she crossed the finish line, when she realized her great achievement, the smile on her face turned into tears of joy.
“I tried to keep my breath away and keep my mind from thinking that this is really going to happen until I ran to the last kilometer or so,” Duffy said.
“I saw my husband on the roadside and he was my coach, so I smiled at him.”
“From there, I slowly let all the emotions flow up, but I really feel that it will take two days before it will really be vented.”
This athlete participated in two Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012, but in Rio in 2016, she came to the Olympics with the hope of medals, and finally returned with disappointment in eighth place.
After the game, Duffy talked about the significance of the gold medal-injuries had almost forced her to give up the sport. She was forced to a truce for a whole year due to a foot injury in 2018-2019; and in 2020, she said that she had been battling knee arthritis.
“It feels incredible,” she said, “I mean, of course all the injuries, pain and tears are totally worth it.”