October 14, 2021
BERMUDA: With Bermuda still celebrating triathlete Flora Duffy’s stellar gold medal performance in Tokyo this summer, there was much discussion on the Island in the past few weeks about the best ways to recognize this achievement. Perhaps not surprising given the hype felt on the Island for Bermuda’s first ever Olympic gold medal, a recent survey by Narrative Research Bermuda clearly shows overwhelming support to formally and publicly recognize the 33-year-old triathlete champion. In fact, 98 percent of the population identified at least one way to recognize Flora Duffy’s performance, from a list of proposed actions and only two percent felt that nothing should be done.
The Government’s recent announcement of a new holiday chosen for October 18, to be known as Flora Duffy Day, appears to be aligned with the public’s desire to highlight the athlete’s success. In fact, half of the population (49%) believe this to be a proper way to honour Duffy’s achievement. What is most interesting is there were no statistically notable differences in opinions across population subgroups and parishes, suggesting there is unity on this choice of recognition.
The survey results showed that two other types of distinctions were as popular, and each garnered the support of just over one half of the population. These include the renaming of a sporting facility in Flora Duffy’s name (54%) and including the Olympic winner’s name on the list of National Heroes to be celebrated each year (52%). Other choices were considered less appropriate in comparison, including placing a statue in a prominent public location (22%), naming a public building or bridge after Flora Duffy (21%) and celebrating the achievement in some other way (8%).
All in all, it appears that the decision to publicly honour Flora Duffy’s spectacular Olympic performance is fully supported by the population of Bermuda.
These results are part of Narrative Research Bermuda’s Online Bermuda Omnibus® Survey conducted in September 2021 with a sample of adult residents of Bermuda (18 years of age or older). The results above are not commissioned by a third party and were collected independently by Narrative Research Bermuda. The results presented in this document were collected from our online survey of 297 members of Narrative Research Bermuda’s proprietary online panel of adult residents, Bermuda Voice. A margin of error cannot be ascribed to the online survey results.
For more information, please contact:
Graham Redford, Managing Partner, Narrative Research Bermuda, 295-0972 or graham@narrativeresearch.bm
Margaret Chapman, COO and Partner, Narrative Research, (902) 493-3834 or mchapman@narrativeresearch.bm
