Dame Flora Duffy has been forced to pull out of her next scheduled race with injury.

Bermuda’s Olympic champion was set to to take her place on the start line for the second event of the T100 World Tour in San Francisco on May 31, but revealed on Instagram that she will be unable to compete in the event as a result of an Achilles injury.

“Unfortunately I’ve had to pull out of @t100triathlon SF due to an Achilles injury,” Duffy said.

“Really disappointed because I was looking forward to racing on this epic course.”

Duffy has raced just once this year but retired on the bike leg in Singapore, the first race of the T100 tour, with what she described as a “serious glute and hip issue”.

But while one of Bermuda’s elite female triathletes watches on from the sidelines, another is getting set to enter the water in Japan.

Olympian Erica Hawley has travelled to Asia to compete in the World Triathlon Championship Series Yokohama against some of the best women in the world.

Ranked 107th in the world, Hawley faces a tough task with 39 of her 42 rivals holding higher world rankings.

Among the favourites to win the race, which is set to start late on Friday night Bermuda time, will be the German duo of Lisa Tertsch and Laura Lindemann. Tertsch is ranked third in the world and won a gold medal in the mixed relay at the Paris Olympics. She also finished ninth in the individual event.

Among the more familiar names taking part is Olympic Games bronze-medal winner Beth Potter, of Great Britain, and Taylor Spivey and Gwen Jorgensen, of the United States.