Flora Duffy continued her remarkable sequence of victories as she dominated the women’s field at the Xterra Asia Pacific Championship in New South Wales, Australia, on Saturday.

Defending her title, Duffy made a superb start exiting the water first in 17min 24sec in the 1,500-metre swim, completing the 30-kilometre bike in 1:34:27 before finishing the 10km run in a 40:26 for an overall time of 2:36:40.

It was Duffy’s tenth Xterra win in her last 11 outings in the global off-road triathlon series. She finished eighth overall.

Barbara Riveros, of Chile, finished second in 2:39:47 while Jacqui Slack, of England, rounded out the podium places in 2:47:06.

Duffy, 27, had the fastest swim time, almost two minutes quicker than Riveros’s, the quickest bike, also more than two minutes faster than the Chilean’s, and the second-best run, less than one-minute behind the runner-up.

“It was a tough day out there,” said Duffy, who was fifth at the ITU World Cup triathlon on the Gold Coast, Australia, last week.

“I really wanted to defend this title, and it’s a lot harder defending. I seem to be the favourite no matter what. I wanted to attack the swim and nail the bike, ride the technical bits as best I could.

“I had a few issues out there, though, with a couple mechanicals and a little crash. It was super muddy. Then I just tried to run steady, and not push too hard. I’m really happy with how it went.”

Riveros, who also finished runner-up to Duffy at last year’s Xterra World Championship, said that Duffy “had been on fire”.

“She’s racing good in ITU as well and I’m super happy for her,” she said. “I fell in the mud puddles, didn’t realise it was so deep, and I couldn’t get out of there. The guy behind was asking if I needed help getting out of there.”

Third-placed Slack, said that the muddy course was particularly tough.

“It’s awesome but you have to keep pedalling all the time, a real power course,” she said.

“There’s no let up, you can’t rest and in the muddy sections you have to keep pushing all the time.

“The competition was amazing here, and it was really close at the end for the third through fifth positions.”

In the men’s race, Braden Currie, of New Zealand, claimed the win in 2:23:37.