Dame Flora Duffy limped away from her first race of the season after failing to finish in Singapore.

Duffy pulled out midway through the bike leg of the T100 World Tour race and was captured by television cameras limping heavily as she joined her husband Dan Hugo on the sidelines.

In the build-up to the race Duffy revealed to The Royal Gazette that she had been struggling with a lower-leg injury and held doubts over whether she would be able to finish the race, but she had a different reason for retiring,

“It was a very tough day for me in Singapore,” she said. “Unfortunately I had to pull out on the bike after having some severe glute/hip issues. Never fun to pull out of a race. A few things to figure out to get my body ready to race again.”

But Duffy did not make it as far as the run leg, pulling out on the last of five bike laps when in fifteenth place in the 21-strong field and was visibly in pain as she left the road.

The race had not gone to plan from the start for Duffy, who was not among the lead group of five athletes after the 2km swim leg as she exited 55 seconds behind leader Jessica Learmonth.

Bermuda’s Olympic champion then dropped ten places before being forced to pull out of a draining race in humid conditions.

The race was eventually won by T100 newcomer Kate Waugh, from Great Britain, who completed the course in 3hr 45min 18sec, beating Austrian Lisa Perterer (3:51:58) and Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay (3:53:09).