The European Kids Athletics Games in Brno, the Czech Republic, brought down the curtain for the Track & Field season for Athletics Malta.
For this two-day event held between the 13 and 14 September in diverse weather conditions, the Athletics Malta squad, consisting of 14 youngsters aged 13 to 15 years of age, gave an excellent account of its youth development programme by bagging two individual medals and another two in the relay events.
No mean feat as the Games were contested by a very large entry of 81 teams hailing from 10 different countries.
Besides the numerous representations from the Czech and Slovak Republics, Russia, the UK, Hungary, Slovenia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Malta brought up the other nations taking part.
Notably, the Maltese athletes registered numerous ‘personal bests’ in their performances, most of them making it to the finals with others just missing out on a podium presentation.
The ones who made it among the medal winners were Nicole Gatt, first in the 300m in an excellent time of 41.83 seconds, Kurt Dalli in the 1,500m who clocked 4.33.48 minutes to take second and the two relay teams.
The girls’ team made up of Destiny Vella Busuttil, Gabriella Grima, Nicole Gatt and Robyn Zammit left everybody stranded to finish first in a superb 31.42 seconds beating the strong Czech and Hungarian squads handsomely.
Samuel Zammit, Bradley Mifsud, Nicholas Mallia and Eric Borg Saywell, thanks to their better coordination and smooth changeovers, pipped the English team to the line to take bronze in a very good time of 28.61 seconds.
Capping these performances was the national record for the 60m youth girls established by Robyn Zammit, when she stopped the clock in 8.20 seconds in her heat, finishing sixth just ahead of Nicole Gatt in the final.
Furthermore, considering that for 13 year Nadine Gatt this is only her first year in athletics competition - let alone it being her first international participation – she excelled by making it to the finals in both the 60m and the 150m sprints. Especially in the final of the latter event, when the pouring rain and cold nearly meant cancellation, this plucky girl, despite a very late, short warm-up, bettered her time registered in her heat to finish fifth in an excellent 20.38 seconds.