Emotional Walsh wins half marathon

Carol Walsh, normally such a jovial character at the finish line, burst into tears after again winning the Malta Half Marathon (1:22:18).

"My son had a very bad accident two weeks ago," she explained afterwards, "so I've been spending most of my time in hospital. It has been a very tough time but I couldn't miss the half marathon partly, perhaps, because it is also a distraction for me.

"However, I also want to dedicate this win to my son as well as to all the surgeons who operated on him and who have done a fantastic job."

Angela Sammut was the second female athlete (1.26.29), a pleasant surprise considering that injury has greatly restricted her activity in recent months.

"I've barely had any training," she admitted, "so I didn't expect to do well. At first Joelle (Cortis) was ahead of me but I tried to keep the gap to a minimum.

"Then, when we came to the final climb I knew that I could overtake her which I managed to do."

The winner of the half marathon was Briton James Douglas who returned to Malta to defend the title he won last year, finishing in 1.09.21.

"I don't mind the heat," he said when asked about the day's warm weather, joking that "my knees are getting older so they need a bit of warming up!

"This past year has been difficult for me. I've changed job, moved house twice and haven't been able to dedicate as much time as I wanted to running particularly over these past two months.

"Yet my coach Ivan Rozhnov had a lot of faith in me and said that I had to do a time of sub 1:10 and I'm happy to prove him right."

Ireland's Ciaran Doherty finished second in 1:10.31 ahead of Brian Magri (1:10.40) who just preceded Robert Attard (1.10.51).

In fact, the two local athletes were engaged in an interesting duel all along the route with Magri starting the race at a much faster pace than Attard.

Attard managed to cut Magri's lead but ultimately he couldn't completely overhaul him and had to make do with fourth overall.