After more than a year of almost constant success stories, there was bound to come a day when teenage triathlon sensation Flora Duffy did not live up to the massive expectations that now follow her everywhere she goes.

And that day arrived last weekend in France when the young Bermudian finished a disappointing seventh at the Les Sables Vendees sprint triathlon in her first outing for her new professional team, Poissy.

Racing in Les Sable D'ollone, a small provincial French town on the Atlantic coast, Duffy emerged from the 800 metre swim in joint first place and entered the first transition area looking as if she was about to produce yet another scintillating display on top of her fifth-place finish at the Lisbon World Cup race on May 6.

But the world junior silver medallist lost vital seconds after picking up the wrong bike by mistake and then felt sluggish on both the 20K ride and 5K run — fatigue which prevented her from making a serious impression on the race leaders.

"I'm using a new bike which was given to me by the team and they all look the same, which is why I made the error," said Duffy, who is now back at her training base in the UK preparing for the Madrid World Cup race on June 3.

"I realised within a few seconds, but in a sprint triathlon that makes a very big difference because by the time I had recovered and got myself sorted out, the lead pack was already well up the road in front of me.

"After that I just kind of sat in the chasing pack trying to make up as much ground as I could, but it was incredibly windy out there and to be honest I felt quite tired after Lisbon and just didn't really have it in the legs.

"It was disappointing because it was my first race for the team and I wanted to do well obviously. The first four members of the team to cross the line counted towards the final team score and I came in fourth so at least I scored for the team.

"But after coming out the water pretty much in joint first I was well-placed to do much better than that. The conditions on the swim were absolutely terrible, the waves were huge and I don't quite know how I got to the end of it.

"So I was happy to come out of the water at the front, but once I fell behind there wasn't much I could do.

"I hadn't really properly recovered from the World Cup race in Lisbon. I had a nightmare journey back to England from Portugal and was only back at school (Kelly College in Devon) for a couple of days before heading off to France again.

"Then it was pretty hectic straight away with team meetings and press conferences and things like that, so by the time it got to the race I was pretty worn out."

Now, however, she's hoping to put that bad experience behind her, having "got it out of the system", and is looking forward to the challenge of Madrid in just over two weeks' time.

"After Madrid the races come pretty regularly so these next two weeks will be my last block of hard training before the big World Cup races and the Pan-Am Games in Brazil," she added.