Nick Pilgrim and Maddie Durkin overcame some thrills, spills and intense heat to be named Liberty Mutual National Sprint Triathlon champions at Albouy’s Point on Sunday.

With the mercury rising throughout, Pilgrim beat a bloodied Jackson Langley to victory in the men’s race with a battered and bruised Durkin fighting past Lynsey Palmer for success in the women’s race.

Pilgrim, 22, was the only athlete to complete the 750 metre swim, 20 kilometre swim and 5km run in less than an hour, stopping the clock in exactly 58min and more than three minutes clear of his nearest rival. But a few minutes after finishing he was still feeling the effects of the heat.

“I’m coming from the UK and I’ve only had a few days here so I really felt the humidity,” Pilgrim said.

“I had a solid swim and I put my head down on the bike. I’ll be honest, I wanted to run a whole lot quicker but what with the heat and the humidity, I cooked my legs a little bit.”

Langley should be thankful that there are rarely sharks in Bermuda waters given the amount of blood he lost in Hamilton Harbour. After crossing the line in 1:01:08, Langley removed his sunglasses to reveal a cut and swollen eye after taking a rival’s elbow to the face during the swim.

“The swim and bike did not go to plan,” Langley said.

“In the first five metres somebody’s arm came round and smacked me right in the face. It caught me off guard and set me back, so the swim was definitely not where I wanted it to be and then the first few laps on the bike it took a bit of getting used to.

“It’s not hurting right now but I can’t see very much because of the swelling. There’s not a lot I could do but it’s just part of the sport. Everybody says triathlon is not a contact sport but anybody who does it knows it definitely is.

“I’ve had a lot of setbacks and injuries this year and I had a choice to make with the eye. Is it going to motivate me to go harder or am I going to let it impair me? I chose the first option to go harder.”

Alex Pilgrim got the better of Jacob Wright by just a hundredth of a second to claim third place. Forced to give up his professional dream as a result of injury, Pilgrim is transitioning to competing for fun.

“I stopped doing this competitively a little while ago due to repetitive injury so I thought I’d set myself this goal three weeks ago, turn the legs over and see how it goes,” he said.

“Anything can happen to end your career. I’ve been lucky enough to come back a few times but I’ve had four shoulder surgeries now, which doesn’t help with the swimming.

“Making the shift from the competitive side to the leisure side has been enlightening but in a good way. It makes it fun again, which is something that has been missing for a while.”

Female champion Durkin picked up her injuries before the race had even started, slipping on the dock as she entered the water for a warm-up swim and cutting her hands and legs.

But she powered through the pain to pass runner-up Palmer on the bike leg and despite victory she admitted to making plenty of mistakes.

“I’ve been doing triathlon for about eight years now and my focus is on my kids as my daughter is competing now, but the amount of little mistakes I made this morning was pretty wild,” Durkin said.

“I fell going into the warm-up for the swim. I have a few cuts, my foot is bleeding and my hand’s a wreck. I racked my bike and then forgot where it was and I made all the boo-boos that you teach your kid never to do. I went in casually this morning and I felt it during the race.”

Palmer, a radiologist at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital had far from the ideal preparation after working night shifts in the build-up to the race.

“It was tough and I was working five nights this week and slept pretty much all day yesterday,” Palmer said

“My lead-up to the race was not the best but I’m not using that as an excuse as that’s just the way my routine is now. My training for this has been mostly swimming so I felt it on the bike and then I was dead on the run. I just wanted to finish.”

In the Junior Triathlon races, Jens Drea and Isla Cooze proved best in the 13 to 15 age group with Naomi MacGuinness and Colette Durkin beating the boys to finish first and second overall in the 11 to 12 age group. Owen Fosker was the first boy to finish.

Heath Kemp and Bethany Davidge were the winners of the Duathlon for young athletes aged 7 to 10.

Steve Horton, president of Liberty Specialty Markets, has sponsored the event for the past four year but is not content to watch on the sidelines, taking part in the race himself.

“We love supporting the community here and we’ve been doing it for the last few years,” he said.

“To see these many people here is great and watching it grow is fantastic. I’ve always had a love of this multidiscipline sport and the community is so supportive. So it doesn’t matter if like me you’re very average and can barely keep your head above water or if you’re elite, the community supports everyone from amateurs to elite pros.”