Flora Duffy will be back in action for only the second time this season when she competes in the Columbia Threadneedle World Triathlon Leeds in England on Sunday.

The fourth stop of the World Triathlon Series will be the start of the European leg of the nine-city tour.

This is only the second time for the WTS Leeds, already one of the most popular events of the year because of its scenic and challenging course.

The rankings are changing every race and Duffy, the World Champion, will have her sights on the No 1 spot.

She returned to the WTS in true Duffy fashion — by securing another win.

After missing out on the first two events of the season because of an injury, Duffy lined up in Yokohama last month and picked up right where she left off, on top of the podium.

She will be hoping to build on that success in Leeds in order to keep climbing the rankings.

Last year in Leeds, Duffy took home the silver medal behind United States’s Gwen Jorgensen.

However, with Jorgensen, the reigning Olympic champion, out of commission this season, as she is pregnant, the lane to the gold medal could be wide open.

For the first time in her career, Kirsten Kasper, of the US, will be wearing No 1.

Her breakthrough 2016 year has continued into this season as her results have consistently kept her near the top, even earning her first WTS medal in Yokohama when she finished third.

With Leeds expected to have over 80,000 fans in attendance to cheer on the elites, the British women will hope to use that adrenalin to their advantage.

The top women’s hopeful for Britain could be Non Stanford who started her 2017 season on the ITU World Cup circuit and won in Chengdu, China. She then competed in WTS Yokohama, however an unlucky bike crash on the rainy course took her out of medal contention.