Hi Everyone,
Last Saturday 4th December; there were the MOC Sports Awards at the Grand Hotel Excelsior. This is the 3rd consecutive year that I managed to be nominated for the final Gala night. I was nominated for my great performances in UK, in particular for my performance in the Nottingham Sprint Triathlon were I finished 2nd overall and 1st in my age group.
I was presented a Bronze Award. This is the 2nd consecutive Bronze Award and adds the total number of MOC Awards to 3. In 2008 I won a Gold award for my victory in the African Triathlon Championships and last year a Bronze Award for my victory in the Worcester Sprint Triathlon. I am very honoured to have won such an award. It’s nice to be given an award after all the efforts done during the year.
This award is another big achievement achieved this year, a year full of success where I managed to achieve my dream to be crowned National Champion. It was a great night for Malta Triathlon as it achieved its better result ever in these awards with Fabio Spiteri, Danica Spiteri, my brother Dermot and myself winning a bronze Award, Mark Zammit a silver award and the National Team a Gold Award. This clearly shows that Malta Triathlon, thanks to its association and dedicated athletes is improving and that finally is being recognised by the sports authorities.
Another success was achieved at the MOC Friendship Mediterranean Games were the Men’s Triathlon Team composed by Mark Zammit and myself won Gold. This is the first time that we managed to win gold in these Games. It was a race which happened to be in my preseason, so I was not in my best shape and since we got to know a bit late about this race, I forced myself a bit in training too soon and unfortunately I injured my hamstring, so went on the start line not very convinced in my abilities, however was determined to give everything for my country.
I managed a great performance and personally I am very surprised. I came out of the water in fourth place with 1.20 of disadvantage from the Sicilian, Salvatore Campagna who was leading the race. On the bike I was feeling great and managed to move up in the lead at the end of the bike. I went out of transition area to start the 5km run together with Salvatore. I was feeling the effort on the bike and that I was out of shape. Salvatore looked to have much more speed in his legs. My hamstring started to hurt me but this didn’t stop me and managed to hang on with Salvatore until the finish. I finished 2nd overall, beaten by 4 seconds and 1st Maltese. A very good performance as it was my first race as the National Champion.
I am happy with my performance although a bit frustrated because if the race was at least a month before, I would have won the race. This is the 2nd silver medal in these games after the one achieved in 2007. I am very happy with the Gold medal achieved in the team event. Another great result achieved for Malta Triathlon. Now I am focusing my training on the swim. I need to improve my swim, if I want to performance well in the ITU races next year. Last week I managed to do 21km of swimming, 100km bike and 72km running. Quiet a big load.
My next racing commitment is the Christmas road running race, Mdina-Spinola on the 19th December.
Take care
Yours in Sport
Keith.
