Never let it be said that Karen Smith takes her triathlons lightly.

The Commonwealth Games athlete may be head and shoulders above her rivals but she never takes anything for granted.

Yesterday she claimed her fourth title in the Bank of Bermuda Triathlon, crossing the line ahead of a fast-finishing Ashley Couper with Flora Duffy, who held second for much of the race, third.

Coming out of the swim in the pack, Smith reeled in Cora Lee Starzomski and Duffy on the bike and opened up a lead that she would never relinquish.

"Each year is extra special because it just pushes you that much further," Smith said afterwards. "This year with a lot of new athletes training and competing, it pushes you to be even better."

Motivation was not a problem.

"There is never a `for certain'," Smith said. "You can flat out, you can cramp, get hit . . . anything can happen out there. You still have to go in with a race frame of mind, not a training frame of mind.

"You have to go as fast as you can and see if you can better your best from the previous year."

Smith said she also likes to turn it into a battle of the sexes to add a little spice to the contest.

"If you can find a couple of guys that you can chase down, great," she said with a smile. "I got a couple but a couple got me too."

She said she got off to the perfect start.

"I went in saying `let's have the best swim you can possibly have', try not to lose the draw. There was a lot of pushing and shoving but I managed to stay on someone's feet."

Smith said she did not know where her rivals were initially, but as she rode onto Front Street she saw they were within striking distance.

"It was good to know they were within reach," she said.

From then on it was all a formality with Smith finishing some distance ahead of Couper, who surged through the field on the run.

While the men's winner, Matthew Herring, sets his sights on the World Championships in Cancun in November, his female equivalent is going to pass on the opportunity.

"I made the qualifying standards but it's been a really long season for me and I just know it's time for my body to say `slow down a little bit, recover and then build up for a new season'," she said.

Couper, meanwhile, only decided to take part after a chat with her mother.

"I came home unexpectedly at the beginning of August and she said `Do you want to do a triathlon?' and I said `Sure, why not.'," said Couper, who lives in California.

"I am just at the building stage with my running right now and it doesn't hurt to do some cross-training. We have been swimming a bit and cycling a bit and I've just been doing my normal running.

"I've had a few setbacks with injuries - just minor - but I feel better now."

Couper said it was a case of getting through the swim and bike and then she knew her rivals would be on her territory in the run.

"I am pretty comfortable in the swim - I am not great but I can hang in there," she said. "The bike is tough - I am not a very good cyclist. I just had to keep in there and go for it the whole time.

"I think I was maybe fifth or sixth going into the run. I said this morning if I can get into the run feeling comfortable that's all I wanted. But you can't really feel good after you've been swimming and cycling!

"I started out feeling great and then after 100 metres I thought `Oh my gosh, I can't believe I have three miles to do'.

"But I just hung in there and the last lap and a half I picked it up and really pushed it.

"Fifteen hundred metres is my distance so I know I can run a mile pretty fast and I had just had to tell myself this was the last one."

Duffy, meanwhile, should be proud of her performance but seemed a little disappointed that she had not been able to hang on to second.

"It was alright but it was not my best race," she said. "I didn't have that good a swim. Usually I come out a lot further ahead of Karen but she is improving a lot.

"My bike was pretty good and the run was one of the best I have done this year in triathlon but Ashley caught me up on the last half of the last lap."