
The official results have not been published but, despite her recent injuries, Flora produced a gutsy performance today to take bronze in the Pan Am Games Womens Triathlon.
As expected, Flora pushed the pace on the bike and on lap 3 went on a solo ride, opening up a gap of 40 secs on the main chasing group who had to work hard to catch Flora on lap 7. Flora and Chile’s Barbara Rivieros ( often 2nd to Flora at XTerra events) again pushed the pace on lap 8 to enter transition about 5 secs ahead of the chasers. However, with the likes of Canadians Paula Findlay and Joanna Brown in the chase group it seemed likely that Flora would be caught but she hung on well although details on Twitter are sketchy.
Rivieros took gold with Mexico’s Diaz moving up into silver and Flora going one better than in last year’s games to take bronze. With the very best Canadians in the field on home turf and some strong Americans in the field t was a shock that these two nations failed to take a medal but Flora’s pace on the bike might have burnt a few strong runners going into the run.
Well done Flora !!