It’s Dame Flora Duffy: New Year honour caps off amazing 2021

As well as being Olympic Champion and World Champion, Flora Duffy is now a Dame.

The Bermudian superstar was awarded the prestigious title late on Friday in the New Year Honours List.

Flora was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire, being “recognised for her exceptional contribution to sport in Bermuda over many years and for her outstanding achievements in triathlon, which include becoming the first and only person from a British Overseas Territory to ever win an Olympic gold medal.

Huge honour for Flora

“Her achievement also made Bermuda the smallest country, in terms of population, to win a gold medal at a Summer Olympics.”

Duffy’s incredible year had its highest point in Tokyo in July, when she produced a peerless performance to outrun Britain’s Georgia Taylor-Brown and American short-course star Katie Zaferes to claim her country’s first ever Olympic gold medal.

Less than a month later Flora was clinching another World Championship title in Edmonton, and she would grab a sixth XTERRA World Championship before the year was out.

Duffy a national hero

It was a stunning second half of 2021 for the 34-year-old star, who has become a national hero like no other in her home nation. She returned to an incredible welcome on the back of that Tokyo success and even had a national holiday named after her.

Friday’s honour just completed her year in the grandest manner, and just like those other titles, it was richly deserved.