Flora Duffy narrowly missed out on a medal at the Pan American Triathlon Champs today, Saturday 31st May as she finished 4th despite a strong run that almost saw her podium. Duffy’s overall time was 2 hrs and 18 secs.

Meanwhile juniors Tyler Smith, coming off a broken arm that hindered his training, and Erica Hawley acquitted themselves well against much older competition in the 16-19 Pam American Championships that featured many leading world juniors. Smith came out of the water with the lead group but narrowly missed getting into the lead pack out of transition and ended up in the chase pack. He finished strongly on the run for a time of 1hr 15 secs for the 750m swim, 20km bike and 5km run for 44th place.

Erica Hawley struggled in the heat on the run to finish in 1hr 10 mins and 12 secs, 39th out of 43 competitors.

However for both juniors it was a good learning experience and they were able to hold their own despite moving up an age group.

Full results were not available at press time but go to http://www.mychiptime.com to get results.

Promising juniors Tyler Smith and Erica Hawley will have their biggest challenge to date when they take on the Pan American region’s best in the ITU 16-19 Pam American Championships tomorrow, Saturday 31st May in Dallas. They both normally race youth (13 to 15) events so this event will be a big step up for them.

They will race the day before Flora Duffy who will be racing Sunday in the professional ranks.

Follow the link on this blog to the ITU website to get more information and results and a link to the race website.

Flora Duffy will be back on a road bike this weekend as she races in the Dallas ITU Pan American Triathlon Championships. For more details follow the link below :

http://playtri.com/itudallas

Also follow the link on this blog to the Bermuda Sun to read my column on “a day in the life of Flora Duffy.”