Living up to her promise, 19 year old Charlene Attard continued to reap the benefits of a training camp concentrated solely on the subject of athletics.

Just a few days away from the World Indoor Championships to be held at the famous Olimpisky Sport Palace Complex in Moscow where the 1980 Olympic Games were organised, Attard and her fellow competitors and training contemporaries for this last fortnight, were given the opportunity to taste competition at the same venue in a two-day tournament that brought their athletic clinic to a climax.

On Tuesday evening our plucky youngster again fared extremely well first by managing to qualify for the final of the 60 metres, recording a modest 7.93 seconds. Later on, in the final, she exploded from her starting blocks to once again lower the national record she managed to smash last week. This time round her time was that of 7.76 seconds, admittedly only a hundredth of a second better, but a national record just the same.

The Italian saying goes that there is not a two without a three, so in this context one may think that running in the 200-metre race today Charlene would again produce that extra effort to come away with another record, this time, one that had been equally hard-won by her club companion Celine Pace in Birmingham two years ago.

Nobody was disappointed as Attard twice managed to better the ‘old’ time of 25.66 seconds, even if the national record was to be had in the semi-final when she stopped the clock on 25.54 seconds. Later on in the final she placed fifth in another good time of 25.59 seconds. The stage is now set for her to really be tested and ‘pushed’ to her limits when tomorrow, at the same venue and in front of a packed stadium, she faces up to the likes of Christine Arron and Lauryn Williams in what will be her stiffest test in the sport to date.

The beauty of it all is that Maltese athletics is no longer cursed with the spectre called ‘inferiority complex’. Nowadays Maltese athletes no longer face top class opposition once in a life-time.

Much sacrifice and hard work goes under the belt but the opportunities are there for one and all.

For Charlene Attard these last two weeks are testimony of the backing the MAAA affords our budding talent and the infrastructure our youth can depend upon.

Equally beneficial was the training received by her accompanying coach Xandru Grech throughout these last two weeks.

All is now set for the cherry on the cake. A fitting finale in the 60 metres race tomorrow at 10am, when Charlene Attard will no longer be sporting the Pembroke Athleta colours of her club, but instead donning the national colours in which she already has, and will undoubtedly reap again, glory to herself and to her country.

So come on Charlene, all Malta is rooting for you!