Aidan Buttigieg and Marie Claire Aquilina make a triple in the adult categories
Aidan Buttigieg of D Sports Lab and Marie Claire Aquilina of Team Greens also won the third and last race of the National Time Trial Championship organized by the Maltese Cycling Federation, which races were held on Sunday 23 June 2024 at the Hal Far Race Way.
Aidan Buttigieg continued with his defence of the title that he won last year where he again ended up dominating in the Elite Category, while Marie Claire Aquilina did the same in the Category reserved for Women. Each lap was 2km where the Elite, the Under 23’s, the Masters, the Women and the Juniors did 10 Laps, while the other categories did: the Under 12’s (2 Lap), the -Under 14’s (4 Laps), Under 16’s (6 laps) and Juniors (8 Laps).
Aidan Buttigieg finished first in the Elite when he ended his race in a time of 27:43.75, an advantage of two minutes and 8 seconds over John Camilleri of B’Kara SJ (29:18.07). Daniel Briffa also from B’Kara SJ finished in third place (29:51.76). The Women’s race resulted in one dominated by Team Greens cyclists, with Marie Claire Aquilina again finishing first in a time of 33:29.48, an advantage of 3 minutes and 3 seconds over her team mate Michelle Vella Wood (36:33.14). Diana Muscat also of Team Greens finished third (37:11.63).
Jacob Schembri won the Under 23 Category in a time of 29:59.66. Luke Borg of The Cyclist-Agones (30:03.84) and Clyve Chetcuti of Mosta CC (31:01.02) finished behind him respectively. The Masters 40+ Category was won again by Luis Joaquin Rojas Guzman of Team Greens in a time of 29:27.19. Mark Zammit of Mosta CC (30:52.66) and Liran Ben Ari of The Cyclist-Agones (32:56.66) followed respectively. Stephen Grima of D Sports Lab won the Masters 50+ Category in a time of 35:30.33 in front of Joseph Caruana of Team Greens (36:26.17).
Kai Azzopardi of The Cyclist-Agones won the Junior Category in a time of 27:06.27, ahead of Matthew Galea of Gozo CC (40:47.32). Ryan Gatt also from The Cyclist-Agones won the Under 16 Male Category in a time of 34:43.86. Nina Debono of Shamrock Stars won the Girls’ Under 14 Category when she completed her four laps in a time of 15:29.26 in front of two Team Greens cyclists Katie Vella Wood (16:51.34) and Rihanna Hassan (21:02.84). Goben Gao of Mosta CC won the Under 14 Boys Category in a time of 13:41.94 in front of two cyclists from Shamrock Stars, Liam Daly (13:46.66) and Jake Refalo (13:58.67). Amy St John of Mosta CC won the Girls’ Under 12 Category in a time of 08:56.49 ahead of Ria Debono of Shamrock Stars (08:58.31), while Ethan Cumbo of Mosta CC also made it a triple when he won the Under 12 Boys Category in a time of 07:19.21 in front of Kruiven Farrugia of Shamrock Stars (08:17.62) and Zacchery Vella of Mosta CC (08:22.90).
After the races, the winning cyclists were presented with medals by Joe Bajada, Secretary General of the Maltese Cycling Federation. The next race will be on Sunday 7 July 2024, the third and last one of the Road Championship. It will be held in the Tax-Xajma circuit, Nadur, Gozo where the first children’s race will start at 7:30 am.
