Flora Duffy was crowned Caribbean triathlon champion yesterday in the Dominican Republic as the 19-year-old began her season in typically commanding fashion.

The world junior silver medallist was competing in the ITU Pan-American Cup, which also doubled as the CAC Triathlon Championships — an event she viewed as nothing more than a useful warm-up ahead of a long year of World Cup races.

Duffy actually finished third overall behind former world number one Joanna Zieger of America and Canadian Christine Jeffreys — both of whom were late entries into the race and ineligible for the CAC Championships.

But Bermuda’s Female Athlete of the Year still came in well ahead of the rest of the 20-woman field, completing the 1.5 kilometre swim, 40K bike and 10K run in a time of two hours, three minutes and 25 seconds — a minute and a half behind the winner.

“I felt pretty good out there considering this was my first race of the season and I’m still quite a long way away from peak fitness,” said Duffy yesterday.

“I got an e-mail from my coach in the UK telling me that Joanna (Zieger) was a late entry. I don’t know too much about her other than that five or six years ago she was the top female triathlete in the world and then went off to do longer distances such as the Ironman.

“But now apparently she’s hoping to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in triathlon and needs to compete in these level of races (the tier below World Cup standard) in order to qualify for the World Cup events themselves.

“She and the Canadian girl (Jeffreys) come from a swimming background and were a good 40 seconds ahead of me after the swim.

“But I was pretty happy with the way the swim went, though on the bike my legs felt a bit heavy and I definitely wasn’t at my best. When it came to the run though I felt good and I really went for it to try and make up as much time as I could.

“So overall I’m pretty happy. I wasn’t putting a huge amount of expectation on myself — it was just nice to get out there racing again before the season starts properly for me.”

Duffy flies back to Bermuda today and in a week and half’s time will travel to Italy for a ten-day training camp with her UK-based coach.

The world number 39’s first World Cup race comes in Lisbon, Portugal on May 5.

She has set a goal for herself of placing 15th or better in each race she enters — results which would push her up well inside the world’s top 25 come the end of the year.

[bul] Triathlete Karen Smith completed a half Ironman in California over the weekend in a time of four hours, 59 minutes and 17 seconds.

Competing in the Ford Ironman California 70.3 race, Smith placed 290th overall and fourth out of 88 in the women’s 35-39 age group category.

She finished the 1.2-mile swim in a time of 34 minutes and 25 seconds, the 52-mile bike ride in 2.47.50 and the 13-mile run in 1.33.11.