Dixon leads a British 1,2,3 in Malta Triathlon

The tough format requires the mastery of the three triathlon disciplines, with a 300m swim- 4km bike ride - 1.6km run, these all performed not once but twice.

On his first ever visit to the Mediterranean island, Dixon’s was a dominant win as he lead from the front throughout, the event set against the scenic backdrop of Vittoriosa Yacht Marina. With a time of 23 minutes 23 seconds, nearly a full minute ahead of his nearest rival, he later described the experience as both ‘full-on’ and simply, ‘awesome’.

With the cancellation of the second consecutive fixture of Saturday’s North East Harrier League due to the previous week’s heavy rain, the main focus for many Morpeth Harriers was Sunday’s Abbey Dash.

At the front of the race, a hard fought battle between Omar Ahmed and Ross Millington went down to a sprint finish, with Ahmed winning in a new course record of 28 minutes 38 seconds by one second, with last year’s winner Adam Craig in third. In all, some nine runners ran sub 29 minutes and twenty nine sub 30. Ahmed’s time also meant that at long last the old course record of Mike Openshaw had been broken.

In the women’s race, Cardiff’s Charlotte Arter ran a remarkable 31:34, the 4th fastest ever legal 10k run by a British athlete, with Abbie Donnelly 2nd in 32:00 and Beth Potter 3rd (32:05). Arter’s time broke the previous course record of Eilish McColgan set in 2016.

Not far behind, however, was Morpeth’s Carl Avery, proudly wearing an England vest, and setting a new personal best of 28:58 in 9th place overall.

Avery’s achievement was matched by no less than nine other Morpeth Harriers who all set new personal bests.

Elsewhere, Gavin Bayne was 1st Over 60 at the Locke Park 5 mile race at Redcar on Sunday. 11th overall, Bayne recorded 31:39 for the three lap course with an age-graded rating of 85%. Paul Bentley was 1st Over 70 in 40:39.

Meanwhile Joe Dixon, Daniel’s younger brother, ran 16 minutes 43 seconds at the Newcastle Parkrun at the weekend, a category record and UK leading time age group time for the 3.1km.