FOR an island Bermuda?s size, we produce our fair share of talented athletes.

But it?s only once in a while that somebody exceptional emerges from the pack.

We?ve seen it with the likes of cricketer Alma (Champ) Hunt, footballers Clyde Best and Shaun Goater, athletes Clarence Saunders and Brian Wellman and sailor Peter Bromby. And there are a few others currently enshrined in the Hall of Fame who some might deem to fall into that same elite category.

Now it would appear there?s another in our midst who might be destined for world fame.

Flora Duffy first showed her potential in junior road running, sweeping honours as a young schoolgirl in just about every race she entered, and dominating the Front Street Mile year after year.

It was evident then that if she pursued a career in athletics, more success would follow.

What, perhaps, wasn?t so clear was that her ability as a swimmer and a cyclist was every bit as impressive as her road running.

Triathlon became a natural path to follow and while the 19-year-old has always excelled in this gruelling three-sport discipline, her rise on the international stage this year has been nothing short of phenomenal.

In one of the fastest growing and most competitive of any sports, Duffy has raised eyebrows wherever she?s competed, prompting speculation that an Olympic medal might one day be within her grasp.

That?s probably not the kind of added pressure she needs at this stage of her career, but given what she?s achieved in a few short months this year, a place on the Olympic podium, either in Beijing in two years? time, or more realistically in London in 2012, has to be the ultimate goal.

Her remarkable eighth-place finish at the Commonwealth Games in March, competing in Melbourne as the youngest entry in the field, a second place recently at the World Junior Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, in an event which she might easily just have won, and a stunning top ten finish at a World Cup event in Hamburg, are results that will have all of the big guns in the sport looking over their shoulders in races to come.

A long season for Duffy begins to taper off this weekend when she lines up in another World Cup race in Beijing.

At her own admission, she?s beginning to feel the strain of juggling her studies at school in England with a tough training regimen and the long hours of travel which international competition demands.

Acknowledging that most of her rivals this weekend are professional athletes who do nothing other than live, eat and breathe triathlon, it might be unrealistic to expect another top ten performance from the young Bermudian.

But if she could emulate her showing in Hamburg a couple of weeks ago, it would cap what has already been an outstanding year.

AS much as Bermuda?s national cricket team have achieved in the last 18 months, there?s little evidence that Bermudians are giving them their full support.

Matches against visiting Trinidadian side, Clico Preysal, at the National Sports Centre this week might well have been the last opportunity to see the local team on home soil before next year?s World Cup.

But attendance at both matches ? scheduled to continue into the evening in order to attract better crowds ? was dismal.

That said, Bermuda Cricket Board might have done a tad more to promote the games, putting the emphasis on the fact that they were to be day/night contests on an experimental glue-enhanced wicket at the National Sports Centre.

A third match involving the national team is scheduled for Somerset tomorrow. Those who claim to follow the sport could give the local players a huge lift simply by turning up.