Flora Duffy has made a strong start to the Island House Triathlon in Bahamas and lies in second place in the women’s race after day one of the competition.

Involving 40 triathletes racing over three days in individual time-trials, enduro and sprint non-drafting, the event has a prize pool of $500,000 — a record for any competition of its type in the world.

Duffy, who defended her Xterra World Championship crown in Kapalua, Hawaii, last weekend, posted an overall time of 57min 28.1sec in yesterday’s time-trial, 34 seconds behind first-place Holly Lawrence, of England, in 56:54.7.

The Bermudian finished the 750-metres swim in 10:21, the 20km bike in 29:25 and 5km run in 17:44 and leads third-place Gwen Jorgensen, the Olympic gold medal-winner, by 13 seconds.

Today’s enduro will be a serious test for the triathletes as they will swim 750, run 5km, bike 40km, and then swim another 750 before running their second 5km.

Only the top-ten men and women will go into tomorrow’s final race, a sprint over 750 swim, 20km bike and 5km run, where the athletes will again start together but will not be able to draft on the bike.

The combined time over the three events will count for overall positions.

In the men’s race Aaron Royle, of Australia, is leading in 52:58 just six seconds ahead of New Zealand’s Terenzo Bozzone, with South African Richard Murray in third a further six seconds back.