St Patrick's make it a clean sweep

It seems that nothing can stop Drew Lang these days. The passing of years may have slowed him a bit but he remains one of the leading long-distance runners on the island and his determination is stronger than ever.

Last Sunday, Lang won the Gudja Ronhill 8k in 28.10 minutes, a victory made all the more remarkable for the fact that he had been hit by a car just four days earlier.

Lang himself takes up the story. "I've been training hard for the Challenge Marathon and last Wednesday was running on the same route as the Gudja 8K when I was run over by a car.

"It was quite a shock and I was quite hurt," he said while pointing at the various cuts on his body.

Despite the aches, however, he still chose to run on Sunday and was rewarded with a win even if the out-of-race Hatem Ksheim was first in.

"I was determined to run because I felt confident of a good result. As soon as the race started, I put the pain at the back of my mind and concentrated on my running."

There was still a psychological side-effect. "It was slightly distracting to run alongside cars as you're still a little bit afraid that the same thing might happen again," Lang reflected.

Lang's win means that he has won the Gudja Ronhill 8k twice just like fellow St Patrick's athlete Jonathan Balzan (28.56) who had to make do with second place this time round. Having barely trained for the past months, this was still a great result for him.

"I'm overjoyed," Balzan said. "For me this was an exceptional result. Up until a couple of weeks ago I couldn't even pick up a slight jog. Even today, I was told not to run but couldn't keep away. To finish second, for me, was great."

Third was another St Patrick's AC athlete, Simon Camilleri (29.16).

"I started well and felt fine at first," he said. "But I couldn't keep up my pace till the end. I'm still quite happy with the result."

St Patrick's AC athletes also dominated the women's category with Giselle Camilleri (31.12) coming out on top ahead of two of her team-mates.

"It was a good race and I'm very pleased to win," she said. "It was encouraging that I finished ahead of some athletes who are normally in front of me. That said, I still have to reach top form and at the moment I'm still building my base physical condition."

Angela Sammut (32.16) was also happy with her second-place finish. "I'm not at the top of my condition and wasn't really planning to run today. Still, the weather was absolutely perfect and it is quite an enjoyable route," Sammut commented.

Third-placed Carmen Hili (33.22), seemed less pleased. "There's always room for improvement, isn't there?" she asked.

In addition to having the top three athletes in both male and female categories as well as seeing youngster Ezekiel Micallef win the 4km (Athleta Pembroke's Denise Law won the girls' race over that distance), St Patrick's were also delighted by the increased profile of the race.

Having been re-branded as the Gudja Ronhill 8K following the sponsorship agreement with www.enjoytherun.com, the handing out of a goody bag, energy drinks supplied by Gensan as well as massaging service provided by SERC after the race have helped boost the attendance to record figures with over a 40 per cent increase over last year.