Exceptionally tough weather conditions prevailed during Sunday’s Garmin Ocean Lava 113km Triathlon giving over 50 athletes a physically demanding and mentally challenging day on the scenic coastal route.
The scene for the day was set immediately in the 1.9km swim segment when athletes had to contend with swells of over a metre in height in the normally sheltered beach.
From the onset it was clear that previous year’s winner Rudolph Agius was going to set the pace and was first out of water clocking 32 minutes and 24 seconds. Just behind were Paul Privitera and Graham Borg who were second and third out of the water respectively.
Out onto the undulating and unforgiving windy 90km bike course, positions started to move around with veteran triathlete David Galea closing in on Agius and edging him to register a slightly faster time on the cycle segment.
As the temperatures soared, it was a head to head battle between Agius and Galea, who for majority of the 21km run were running abreast. It was in the final two kilometres of the race that Agius started to increase the pace, slowly distancing himself from Galea to win the race in a time of four hours thirty nine minutes and 54 seconds...
