Flora Duffy won a record fourth World Triathlon title after a long drawn battle with Georgia Taylor-Brown at the Yas Bay Waterfront in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
The Tokyo Olympic gold medallist was in top form throughout the 1.5-kilometre swim, 40km bike stage and the 10km run as she won the Abu Dhabi World Triathlon Championship Finals and the overall title in the women’s elite race.
It was Taylor-Brown who led the bike stage but Duffy caught up with the Briton in the first of the four laps of the running stage before pulling away to finish the final race of a remarkable 2022 in 1 hour 53 minutes and 24 seconds.
Taylor-Brown crossed the finish line a minute and four seconds behind followed by Lena Meissner of Germany, a further 2 minutes 35 seconds down in third.
American Taylor Knibb finished fourth and took the overall third spot behind Duffy and Taylor-Brown.
Duffy, 35, will certainly go down as one of the greatest triathletes ever after a record fourth world championship. She’s also the first woman ever to have won an Olympic and World title in the same year.
Duffy hit the tape more than a minute ahead of Taylor-Brown but she insisted that was not a true reflection of the race.
“It was an absolute battle out there,” she said. “Georgia and I don’t give each other an inch. I thought I was pretty good today... [I had to] save, save, and take care of myself because it was super-hot out there.
“I stayed focussed. I opened the gap, I think in the third lap of the run, it was little sooner than I anticipated. It was audacious stuff but you know, you need to keep pushing.”
Duffy had thoughts of retiring from the World Championship format after her gold at the Tokyo Olympics but those plans have been shelved as she looks ahead to Paris 2024.
“I’m very glad I did change my mind,” she added. “I’m still really enjoying it. It’s a three year cycle for Paris so I’m trying to stick in there with a final Olympics with my friends and family, and enjoy that moment.”
Taylor-Brown, 28, was gracious in defeat.
“I gave everything I had today,” she said. “It has been hard few months personally and I just try to put everything in a box and forget it. I’m pretty proud of myself.
“It’s fun to compete with Flora. We were battling it out there until the end and I gave absolutely everything I had. I’m still learning but I still want to win that world title one day.”
Earlier in the day, Connor Bentley and Kate Waugh shared the honours in the U23 World Titles.
Bentley capped a remarkable end to his year with an outstanding run in the men’s age group event. The Briton led with a small group for much of the bike section and then found another level on the running stage to pull clear for the gold.
Waugh made a breakaway with teammate Jessica Fullagar on the bike stage and then pulled clear on the run, embarking on a gutsy solo 10km all the way to the tape.
more from Janine di Giovanni
Essentials
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Geneva from Dh2,845 return, including taxes. The flight takes 6 hours.
The package
Clinique La Prairie offers a variety of programmes. A six-night Master Detox costs from 14,900 Swiss francs (Dh57,655), including all food, accommodation and a set schedule of medical consultations and spa treatments.
Federer's 11 Wimbledon finals
2003 Beat Mark Philippoussis
2004 Beat Andy Roddick
2005 Beat Andy Roddick
2006 Beat Rafael Nadal
2007 Beat Rafael Nadal
2008 Lost to Rafael Nadal
2009 Beat Andy Roddick
2012 Beat Andy Murray
2014 Lost to Novak Djokovic
2015 Lost to Novak Djokovic
2017 Beat Marin Cilic
Bio
Born in Dubai in 1994
Her father is a retired Emirati police officer and her mother is originally from Kuwait
She Graduated from the American University of Sharjah in 2015 and is currently working on her Masters in Communication from the University of Sharjah.
Her favourite film is Pacific Rim, directed by Guillermo del Toro
FIXTURES
UAE’s remaining fixtures in World Cup qualification R2
Oct 8: Malaysia (h)
Oct 13: Indonesia (a)
Nov 12: Thailand (h)
Nov 17: Vietnam (h)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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Key changes
Commission caps
For life insurance products with a savings component, Peter Hodgins of Clyde & Co said different caps apply to the saving and protection elements:
• For the saving component, a cap of 4.5 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 90 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• On the protection component, there is a cap of 10 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 160 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• Indemnity commission, the amount of commission that can be advanced to a product salesperson, can be 50 per cent of the annualised premium for the first year or 50 per cent of the total commissions on the policy calculated.
• The remaining commission after deduction of the indemnity commission is paid equally over the premium payment term.
• For pure protection products, which only offer a life insurance component, the maximum commission will be 10 per cent of the annualised premium multiplied by the length of the policy in years.
Disclosure
Customers must now be provided with a full illustration of the product they are buying to ensure they understand the potential returns on savings products as well as the effects of any charges. There is also a “free-look” period of 30 days, where insurers must provide a full refund if the buyer wishes to cancel the policy.
“The illustration should provide for at least two scenarios to illustrate the performance of the product,” said Mr Hodgins. “All illustrations are required to be signed by the customer.”
Another illustration must outline surrender charges to ensure they understand the costs of exiting a fixed-term product early.
Illustrations must also be kept updatedand insurers must provide information on the top five investment funds available annually, including at least five years' performance data.
“This may be segregated based on the risk appetite of the customer (in which case, the top five funds for each segment must be provided),” said Mr Hodgins.
Product providers must also disclose the ratio of protection benefit to savings benefits. If a protection benefit ratio is less than 10 per cent "the product must carry a warning stating that it has limited or no protection benefit" Mr Hodgins added.
