Balzan troubles the record keepers once more

You know you've had a fast race when you're met with the congratulations of a traffic policeman at the finish line.

That was Jonathan Balzan's experience at Sunday's Hilly Clothing Gudja 8K as the officer who had spent the previous hour on his motorbike ensuring that runners and cars are kept at a safe distance from each other approached him to express his amazement.

"You went like a motorbike!" he said, before admitting that he had measured the pace with which he was running on the speedometre.

"At one point you hit 20 kilometres per hour and kept going at that pace for quite a stretch."

It is testament to Balzan's status as the best that local long distance running has to offer that his only rival at the moment is time.

In three of the last four races he's competed in he has managed to set a course record so there was little surprise that he did so again in Gudja.

26.04 is the official timing of his finishing time, the third time in three years that he has redefined the boundaries of this race.

"At the fifth kilometre I was struggling a bit," he said blaming this on the after effects of a cold.

"But then I started to recover and my coach told me that I had to push for it so I did."

To further outline Balzan's dominance was the finishing time of Rodney Cassar who, at 29.25 was over three minutes behind the winner. Third place went to Patrick Saliba who covered the distance in 29.37.

There were no new records among the women but Giselle Camilleri was just as dominant, eventually winning in 30.57.

Fresh from a summer spent training in France, she seems eager to build on last season when she won bronze at the Cyprus GSSE.

"For me this race was preparation for the Road Running League that starts next week," she said.

"That is not to say that I didn't push myself. It was still a difficult race and this isn't an easy route. Still I think that I had something in reserve at the end."

Last year's winner, Joelle Cortis, was second in 32.29 and Rita Galea third, 35.55.