Birkirakara St Joseph Triathletes Dermot Galea and Johanna Calleja, below, took part in the British University Triathlon Championships held at Dearne Valley in the UK.

Although taking part following a couple of weeks trying to recover from a knee injury, Galea was still looking forward to a solid performance. In fact he had a good swim; managing to stay in the second group of swimmers and covering the 1,600m swim in a time of 23 mins 45 secs. After a very fast transition, the B’Kara swimmer started the bike in 15th place.

The bike course was hilly and technical and this suited Galea’s characteristics, however he was feeling very sick on the first few kilometres.

Luckily after the first lap, Galea managed to overcome this crisis and got into his usual rhythm, covering the 40km route in 1hr 5mins. After another quick transition, Galea started the 10km off road run well. However the missed training due to his knee injury was taking its toll as Galea’s pace decreased significantly to finish the race in 2 hrs 15 mins in a creditable 15th place

On the other hand, Johanna Calleja had an outstanding race. She covered the 1,600m swim in 29 minutes 35 minutes. After the swim to bike transition, Calleja started the bike in 12th place. Although the bike course does not suit her characteristics, Calleja moved up to 11th place by the end of the bike segment, which she covered in a time of 1 hr 15 minutes 32 seconds.

After the hilly bike course, Calleja still had to face the 10km off road and hilly run. It was here where Calleja put her sight on the top 10 as she covered the distance in 48 minutes 24 seconds to finish in a great 9th place.

She clocked a personal best time of 2 hrs 33 minutes 31 seconds even though the race was longer than the standard distances and on such a difficult course.