Erica Hawley finished an impressive seventh in a highly competitive elite women’s field at the World Triathlon Cup Asunción despite ending the race with a bruised toe in Paraguay on Sunday.

The Bermudian completed the race in a combined time of 1hr 57min 31sec, 1:27 behind race winner American Danielle Orie, who crossed the line in 1:56:04. Hawley bagged some valuable points in the race for Olympic qualification.

“I was very happy with my seventh-place performance in Asuncion,” Hawley told The Royal Gazette.

“After a bad swim in Rio, I wanted to improve on this. The conditions were almost opposite [wetsuit and calm lake swim] and I felt very in control and came out the water tenth, which was one of my best.

“On the bike, I was in a group of around 16 and we were working well and managed to get around a 90-second gap until the next group.

“Unfortunately, at the dismount I crashed and lost some time here and my foot was in a lot of pain.

“It was very cold, 55 degrees and raining at points on the bike so I think I just lost sensations in my feet when coming off the bike.

“In the first 1km I had to work really hard to get in contact with some runners and felt like I missed the group of four up front. I still ran one of my best 10Ks for seventh place.

“As of now my toe is very bruised and swollen so I hope nothing is broken, but I will get things checked out when I get back home.”

Hawley negotiated the 1.5km swim in 19:25, needed 1:01:11 to complete the 40km bike ride and ran 10km in 34:33. Her consistency across all three disciplines put her in contention throughout and she moved through the field on the run to secure a top-ten finish against a strong international field.

It was a massive improvement for the 28-year-old after she settled for eighteenth position at the World Triathlon Cup Rio de Janeiro in Brazil a week before. She almost matched her performance at the World Triathlon Cup Edmonton, where she finished sixth.

In the elite men’s race of the same event, Hawley’s compatriot Tyler Smith did not complete his race after a tyre puncture forced him to withdraw.

The Bermuda Half-Marathon Derby champion went to Paraguay in high spirits after securing bronze at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

“It was really sad for Tyler to get a flat tyre,” Hawley added.

“I think everyone gets a flat once in their life in a race. Hopefully, that’s his bad luck out of the way.”