Dermot Galea 12th in age-group in Ironman Wales

Birkirkara St. Joseph’s National Triathlon champion Dermot Galea recently took part in Ironman Wales, in Tenby in his bit to achieve a qualifying time for Ironman Hawaii. This target however was narrowly missed, notwithstanding his solid performance on the day.

The race started with 3.8-kilometre swim where Galea came out of the water in 49th position in a time of 52 minutes 24 seconds.  After a very long 1 kilometre run to transition area, Galea started the bike segment of the race on the hour mark, facing a hard technical 180-kilometre course around the roads of Pembrokeshire.  The prevailing wet and windy conditions made life very difficult for the Birkirkara triathlete in this segment.  However he managed to get back to transition area in the 79th position following 5 hours and 49 minutes of arduous cycling.

Weather conditions continued to deteriorate during the final segment of the race, a 42-kilometre marathon run.  Undaunted by his cycling performance, Galea turned on a powerful run registering a time of 3 hours 7minutes for the marathon, for a total time of 9 hours 59 minutes 17 seconds.  Galea’s overall placing was 62nd from 1,650 starters and a creditable 12th in his age-group.

This was the 6th Ironman in Galea’s career, and his 3rd sub-10 hours performance.  Unfortunately this solid result was not enough for the Birkirkara triathlete to qualify for Ironman Hawaii which is a world championship race. In comments he gave on his Club’s website, Galea said that his failure to qualify in Wales, will spur him to further enhance his preparations and training regimes and to improve his performances in the coming months.