Farewell to Michelle Duff: she won World Championships under the name Mike, then underwent a sex change.

The motorcycling world mourns former Canadian Grand Prix motorcycle racer Michelle Duff, who died of illness at the age of 86. Before her sex change in 1987, when she was called Mike, she was a top-level rider: her best season was 1965, with a second-place finish in the 250cc World Championship aboard a factory Yamaha with Phil Read as her teammate.

He had started racing in Canadian national races in 1957, beginning his world championship adventure in 1961 with a Matchless G50 and an AJS 7R, 15th in the Junior TT (350) and 14th in the Senior TT (500). Then he came close to the podium with an excellent fourth place in the 500 at the Belgian GP in Spa behind Gary Hocking (MV Agusta), Mike Hailwood (Norton), Bob McIntyre (Norton). He still raced very few times due to lack of money. Another fourth place in 1964 at the Senior TT and a sixth in the 350. In the same season he became an official Yamaha 250 rider: first world championship victory in Belgium at Spa (fastest lap at 193.592 km/h, never before had anyone lapped so fast in a quarter-litre) ahead of Redman (Honda), Shepherd (MZ), Robb (Yamaha) Provini (Benelli). In 1965, his best season, he won the 125cc class at Assen with the Yamaha twin-cylinder, two-stroke rotary-disc engine, outlasting the Suzukis of Yoshima Katayama and Hugh Anderson in the sprint, and also leaving behind champions such as teammate Bill Ivy and factory Honda rider Luigi Taveri. That same season, he won the 250cc class in Finland, along with second-place finishes in the American, German, Tourist Trophy, Czechoslovakia, and Ulster GPs, effectively losing the championship after retiring from the final race at Monza. He also achieved numerous podium finishes in the 350cc class, with victories lost due to crashes or bad luck. Duff competed in the MotoGP World Championship until 1967, winning, as mentioned, three Grand Prix races, and, as his best result of the season, in 1965 he became vice-champion in the 250cc class, behind teammate Phil Read and ahead of Jim Redman (Honda). In addition to his three world championship victories, he also achieved 24 world championship podium finishes and many others in national races. The 1967 season concluded with a spectacular crash in the post-season Yamaha tests, resulting in a broken pelvis and hip, which resulted in six months in the hospital. He then returned to the track on a private Matchless 500, finishing third in Canada behind Hailwood and Agostini, and repeating his victory in the Daytona 200. Duff retired from racing at the end of 1969, after winning the Canadian championship in the major displacement classes.

Having retired from racing and with both marriages broken up, Duff decided to undergo a sex transition. Thus, in 1987, she became Michelle, began a new life, and began writing books and novels about the world of racing. Among these, the most internationally renowned is "The Mike Duff Story: Make Haste Slowly." The former racer overcame his isolation by competing, mostly with his factory Yamaha 250 twin-cylinder, in international vintage motorcycle events. During a reenactment at Spa in 2008, Duff said goodbye to motorcycles after a high-speed crash that left him with several fractures, a collapsed lung, and a skull fracture. For Duff, life was confined to thoughts of a past that would never return. When asked if he had wanted to be a woman since he was young, he replied bluntly, "No!" because he would never have been able to do what he loved most: racing.