Flora Duffy and Georgia Taylor-Brown: The title of 2022 triathlon world champion all comes down to this 

What an end to the triathlon season it’s shaping up to be.

With just two races left on the World Triathlon Championship Series calendar, the Olympic champion and Olympic silver medallist, Flora Duffy and Georgia Taylor-Brown, sit second and first in the standings.

Britain’s Taylor-Brown has 3925 points while Bermuda’s Duffy’s total is 3482, with points from your top four races counting towards the overall score. However, with a home race in which Taylor-Brown will not compete on the cards for Duffy this weekend and extra points available in the championships finale in Abu Dhabi, this title race is certain to deliver a thrilling ending.

Duffy, 35, is the reigning Olympic champion, having stormed to victory in Odaiba Marine Park to become Bermuda’s first-ever gold medallist at the Games. She also has three world championship titles to her name, having topped the tables in 2016, 2017 and 2021.

The 28-year-old Taylor-Brown delivered individual silver for Great Britain at Tokyo 2020, overcoming a pre-Olympics stress reaction in her thigh bone and a puncture during the Olympic race to take the second spot on the podium. She too has a world title, having won the one-off sprint race in Hamburg that defined a 2020 season that had been disrupted by COVID, and took gold in the mixed relay at Tokyo 2020.

Now, just a year after their Olympic heroics, both are in an excellent position to win the 2022 world title, with the season-defining races coming on 6 November in Bermuda and 25 November in UAE.

How could Flora Duffy or Georgia Taylor-Brown win the title?

With three wins and a second place so far this season, Taylor-Brown is in pole position to win the second title of her career, with her points total from her four season’s races already defined. However, with Duffy readying herself for a home race this weekend in Bermuda that could snag her more points and a season finale that offers up 25% more points than usual, the title is still very much to play for. 

So far, Duffy’s four races include two golds, a bronze and a seventh-place finish, but that could all change in Bermuda where a win would see her cut the deficit to Taylor-Brown significantly. 

The championships finale in Abu Dhabi gives 1250 points instead of the standard 1000 to the winner, meaning that, should Duffy win this weekend, gold for either in UAE would secure the title. 

However, the two Olympic stars aren’t the only ones with a chance of taking home the overall title, even if those chances are significantly lower for those in the chasing pack. 

Of the rest of the top five, the only one racing in Bermuda is the USA’s fifth-place Taylor Spivey, who currently sits on 3050 points from her four races. A win in Bermuda could see her cut the deficit to the top two and could leave her within striking distance in the finale. 

France’s Cassandre Beaugrand in third (3181 points) and Britain’s Beth Potter in fourth (3139 points) will need Duffy and Taylor-Brown to both have a disastrous day in Abu Dhabi to have any chance of taking the title.

Georgia Taylor-Brown and Flora Duffy: The season so far

As well as the races in 2022, the 2021 races in Abu Dhabi and Hamburg also count towards the points total for this year’s title. 

The 2021 Abu Dhabi race saw Duffy take the win with Taylor-Brown in second place, perhaps pre-empting the battle that would ensue between the two over the following year. 

Taylor-Brown began 2022 in scintillating form, taking the victory in Yokohama in May in a race in which Duffy came third. She followed it up with second place in her home race in Leeds, with Duffy only ending the day in seventh. 

In Montreal, Taylor-Brown once again topped the standings, while Hamburg saw Duffy take the second of her two golds, as she beat Britain’s Beth Potter to the line in a race in which Taylor-Brown did not compete. 

The last of Taylor-Brown’s victories came in October’s WTCS race in Cagliari, Italy, where she led home France’s Emma Lombardi and the USA’s Taylor Knibb to tighten her stranglehold on the title. 

Now just two races remain to define the destiny of this year’s title, Duffy’s home race in Bermuda and the season finale in Abu Dhabi. 

One thing’s for sure, you won’t want to miss the end of this World Triathlon Championship Series beginning 6 November and culminating with the big one on 25 November.