David Galea has become the second Maltese triathlete to qualify for the Ironman World Championship, following in the footsteps of Dermot Galea in 2013.
He punched his ticket for the Worlds after a perfect race in Ironman UK held in Bolton earlier this month.
The race also featured two other Maltese triathletes – Jude Zammit and Gejtu Catania. They practise regularly along with Galea.
Over the past four years, Galea, Zammit and Catania have focused their training mainly on long distance races. An Ironman is an endurance challenge which sees participants swim almost four kilometres, cycle 180 kilometres and then run a full marathon – 42 kilometres.
Ironman races require detailed preparation ahead of a new challenge besides long hours of hard training to reach peak form at the right moment.
The trio practise for most of the time as a group and they support each other continuously. Long two-hour runs and cycling sessions lasting well over four hours at the end of every weekend would have been impossible to endure on one’s own.
Participation in Bolton had been planned right after they completed Ironman Barcelona back in October where Galea established a new Maltese record of 9 hours, 10 minutes and 33 seconds for the distance.
The prospect of qualifying for the Kona Worlds whetted Galea’s appetite and despite being a very difficult course, he still believed that Bolton was the event that offered him the best possibility of qualification.
The race proved harder than expected with the weather conditions changing from a chilly morning to a very warm afternoon.
Swimming in the murky waters of the Pennington Flash reservoir made things hard at the start while the bike segment in the Wigan surroundings had an elevation gain of 2,165m.
However, Galea produced a strong performance in all three segments.
He swam 3,800m in just under 63 minutes and cycled 180kms in 5 hours 45 minutes to rise to 12th place in his category. He then pushed towards the qualifying time by moving up to fifth out of 390 finishers after a marathon time of 3 hours 36 minutes for an overall 10:37:12.
The Ironman Worlds will be held in October on Kona Island, in Hawaii.
Galea has a long history of successes in the sport as he was crowned long distance national champion in 2014, triathlon champion in 2003 and he also claimed the triathlon and duathlon best athlete titles three times.
In Bolton, Zammit finished in 11 hours and 43 minutes to classify 21st in his category as Catania reached home three places behind, in 11 hours and 52 minutes.
In a statement, Galea thanked both Zammit and Catania for their support, particularly during training, as well as with his family, team-mates, personal sponsors and the Malta Triathlon Federation.