Maltese swimmer Angela Galea finished fifteen overall in the 100m butterfly swimming event, held in the Las Almadrabillas Sports Centre.

Anglea Galea swam in the second heat of the day and finished in eighth position, clocking 1:05:90.

Her heat was won by Italian Ambra Migliori who clocked 1:01:18.

In the first heat, Albanian Jakova Alb who finished eighth clocked 1:15:86, and thus Angela Galea finished fifteenth overall, actually beating the Albanian swimmer.

Angela Galea made history in the Small Nations Games at Andorra weeks ago, when she obtained Malta's first ever gold in the swimming events.

Host Spain won its first gold medal at the Mediterranean Games yesterday as Ivan Leal beat Milos Zivkovic of Serbia-Montenegro 1-0 in karate's under-80 kilogram category.

Leal won the point - and contest - with a special karate technique involving a fist to the chest.

World champion in 2000 and 2002, Leal defeated Italy's Biagio La Forgia, Greece's Dimitrios Rachoutis and Turkey's Zeynel Celik in earlier rounds.

"I have achieved European and world titles. All I'm missing is an Olympic medal and hopefully I (will) get the opportunity to fight for that," said Leal, referring to karate's bid to become an Olympic sport.

Italy got its second gold with Stefan Maniscalco defeating Almir Cecunjanin of Serbia-Montenegro 10-1 in karate's over-80 kilogram category.

After winning five gold medals out of a possible nine on Friday, French swimmers topped three of eight qualifiers yesterday.

Celine Couderc finished first in the women's 50-meter freestyle with a time of 26.08 while Ester Baron won the 200-meter backstroke in 2:13.15. Romain Barnier led the 100 fly with 54:33.

Algeria's Iles Salim got the fastest time in the men's 50-meter freestyle with 22.58 and Spain's David Levecq led the men's 100 freestyle with 56.60.

On Friday, Olympic champion Laure Manaudou from France clocked 29.17 to win the 50-meter backstroke, and then went on to time 4:08.90 in winning the 400 freestyle.

Anne Le Paranthoen of France won gold in the women's 100 breaststroke, Frenchman Hugues Duboscq won the 100 breaststroke and France also won the women's 400-meter relay.

Italy's Massimiliano Rosolino finished first in the men's 400 freestyle and Greece's Aristeidis Grigoriadis won the first gold of the games in the men's 50 backstroke.

In the men's 200 medley, Tunisia's Oussama Mellouli bagged gold and the women's event was won by Slovenia's Anji Klinar.

The games feature more than 4,000 athletes from 21 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. Europe has 14 countries taking part, Africa five, and Asia two.

Spain hopes the tournament will boost Madrid's bid for the 2012 Olympics. Paris, London, New York and Moscow are the other candidates. The vote for the host city takes place on July 6 in Singapore.

The games are held every four years, lasting for 13 days. They were first staged in 1951.