Top-10 finish for Calleja in British competition

Birkirkara St Joseph triathletes Dermot Galea and Johanna Calleja recently took part in the British University Triathlon Champion-ships in Dearne Valley.

Despite being plagued by a knee injury in the weeks leading up to the race, Galea was still looking forward to a solid performance.

He had a good swim, managing to stay in the second batch of swimmers and covering the 1,600m swim in a time of 23mins 45sec. After a very swift transition, Galea started the bike segment in 15th place.

The hilly and technical bike segment should have suited Galea’s characteristics fine but he started to feel sick in the first few kilometres. Fortunately, after the initial lap, Galea managed to overcome this partial crisis and got into his usual rhythm, covering the 40km route in 1hr 05mins.

After another quick transition, Galea set out for the 10km off-road run strongly.

However, his limited training because of the knee injury was taking its toll as Galea was unable to keep up his usual pace. He still finished the race in 2hrs 15mins and 15th overall.

In the women’s field, Calleja had an outstanding race. She covered the 1,600m swim in 29 minutes 35 seconds.

After the swim-to-bike transition, she took off for the bike run in 12th place.

Calleja moved up to 11th by the end of the bike segment which she covered in 1:15.32.

After the gruelling bike course, Calleja still had to face the 10km off road and hilly run. It was here where she forced her way into the top 10 as she covered the distance in 48 minutes 24 seconds to finish ninth.

The Birkirkara St Joseph triathlete clocked a personal best of two hours 33 minutes 31 seconds, even though the race was longer than the standard distances and on tougher terrain.