Malta's girls were an unhappy group yesterday despite winning the silver medal in the team event. In fact, they lost 1-2 against Iceland in the final.

They were so close to landing the gold medal missing out on the final bout as Eileen Portelli unfortunately lost by an ippon to Gigj Gubrandsdottir.

Earlier, Luana Ciantar had given the Maltese the lead with a victory by an ippon.

Next on the mat was Marcon Bezzina, the gold medallist in the individual event, who lost by an ippon to Margret Bjarndottir and that was followed by Portelli's defeat in the final bout.

At the end, the disappointment showed on the Maltese girls as Marcon Bezzina finished the evening in tears.

It was the second time that the teams event had been held in these Games. And it was the second time Iceland had beaten Malta 2-1 in the final. Maybe our girls will be third time lucky in the Monaco Games in 2007!

Italian coach Nicolangelo Fetto was also very disappointed with the defeat. Asked to give a comment when it was over, he said he felt he was not in a position to make any comments, though he must have been obviously happy with the performance of the girls.

It is known that the previous day he had been showered with praise by Chef de Mission Pippo Psaila during a technical meeting for coaches, considering that he has been with the judo squad in Malta during the past two months only.

Earlier they had done well to beat Cyprus 2-1 in the semi-final winning the clash 20-10 on points.

In this match Cyprus presented only two judokas and Vicki Licari was given a walkover. Luana Ciantar had lost to Penelope Stavrinou in the opening bout, but after the walkover for Licari, Marcon Bezzina managed to beat Despina Panayiotou to claim victory for Malta. And in their first qualifier, Malta's women had beaten Monaco 2-1.

In the men's competition Malta lost against Andorra 2-1 in the qualifier and then also lost against Cyprus in the match for the bronze medal.