It is a shame she will now have a long wait to turn that into a possible fifth world women’s motocross championship.
Duncan rebounded from a frustrating period to win one of the two races at the final round of the WMX season in Turkey at the weekend.
She finished second in the other race to tie for the round lead with Daniela Guillen, the Spanish rider officially crowned Turkish champion on countback.
It left Duncan fifth overall in the 2024 world championship standings on 199 points.
That was a fair way off the new champion, Dutch sensation Lotte van Drunen and her 282 points, but the way the season ended for Duncan indicated she has plenty of gas left in the tank, so to speak.
It was a challenging season for the Dunedin rider as she stayed on a Kawasaki but switched to the F&H Racing Team.
Ninth in the opening round in Spain was following by fifth in Sardinia and second in Galicia.
Then followed a rough patch in which Duncan required knee surgery after a training crash.
She missed round four in Germany and battled to 14th in round five in Italy.
Second overall in both the Netherlands and Turkey to finish the season reflected the class of the 2023 and 2019-21 world champion.
Duncan looked good as soon as the gate dropped for race one in Turkey.
She darted into the lead, pulled clear and was never really challenged as she held off Guillen and six-time world champion Kiara Fontanesi, of Italy, by 7sec.
Race two presented a much heavier track, and several riders got in trouble in deep ruts.
Fontanesi led early from Guillen and Duncan, but the Italian suffered a late crash.
The story of the season was Yamaha rider van Drunen, who quietly finished fourth and fifth in Turkey to seal her maiden world title.
The 17-year-old became the youngest WMX champion with round wins in Sardinia, Galicia and the Netherlands.
Guillen finished second in the overall championship, Fontanesi was third and Lynn Valk, of the Netherlands, fourth.
