The 11th Games for European Small States came to an end yesterday as our athletes and officials mingled with the others from the participating countries in a closing ceremony benefiting the occasion.

It was an edition which I consider positive taking into consideration not just the exceptional results obtained by our athletes or even their overall performances, but also including all the obstacles and delays since the start of the year.

Summing it all up, Malta won seven gold medals, 13 silver and 17 bronzes which make a total haul of 37 medals, three more than the number predicted earlier by Chef de Mission Pippo Psaila.

This must be considered as a more than satisfactory result with such limited funds made available earlier this year. In fact, before we came here, I had serious doubts as to the claims by Pippo Psaila and Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco that they were convinced that the Maltese athletes would obtain a result more or less close to that obtained in San Marino in 2001.

I and those who did not agree have been proved wrong. I have always been a pessimist, but I admire Pippo and the MOC president for being so convincing. Of course, they knew all the way what they were saying. And they were provided with a few healthy surprises here in Andorra.

Psaila went wrong on just one count. He predicted nine gold medals and we got seven. But that does not mean our athletes under performed.

Yesterday at the city stadium, athletics produced more superb performances by most of the athletes on parade as the Maltese won two gold, six silver and two bronze medals for an overall haul of two golds, nine silver and six bronze medals over the three-day programme.

It was a remarkable achievement for this discipline which is growing in stature every year. And it was particularly satisfying for Raschid Chouhal, winner of a gold medal and two silvers, and, of course, Carol Galea, who claimed another gold at the venerable age of 45.

The tennis gold remains elusive to us but, despite the disappointment, the fact that Boris Pashanski won the silver medal must be considered as something positive. It was the first silver medal won by a player representing Malta, even though he is not Maltese. That, in itself, was an improvement over past editions.

And considering that the Malta Tennis Federation is encountering difficulties in finding female players, one can only commend Lisa Camenzuli and Stephanie Pace for their efforts in Andorra.

Despite a shoulder injury, Lisa managed a bronze medal in the singles, even though I feel she would have had no chance against Minella of Luxembourg, the eventual winner of the event. Lisa also went on to win a second bronze medal when partnering the young Stephanie in the doubles event.

Table-Tennis provided the best satisfactions for Malta as Simon Gerada and Andrezej Makowski ended their commitments with a haul of two golds, one silver and one bronze.

Theirs was a remarkable achievement, especially Simon Gerada. It was sweet revenge for him after having missed out on the singles gold in San Marino and the Malta Games (in Gozo). I feel his victory was achieved not in the final against Andrezej, but in that semi-final against Iceland's Gudmundur Stephensen, where he registered a sensational come from behind victory to win the game 3-2 after having gone 2-0 in arrears when losing the first two sets.

I liked his mentality. "I would like to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, next year, if I am selected to represent Malta," he told us after his victory. If all our athletes show the same winning mentality, I am sure they would be much more successful.

Another sport which provided unexpected satisfactions was swimming where Angela Galea won a gold medal and two bronzes, one of which when helping the 4 x 100 team which included Roberta Callus, Francesca Paolella and Davina Mangion.

This sport needs more support from every aspect. These swimmers still train under what one might call abnormal conditions. Their early morning sessions and the fact that sometimes they have to share the lanes with others is certainly not conducive to anyone interested in joining this squad, but this team has confirmed its determination and commitment apart from justifying their participation in these Games.

And what about shooting? William Chetcuti's gold and Emmanuel Grima's silver in the Double Trap competition just confirmed our predictions that we are very strong in this sector.

Chetcuti's gold was somewhat expected but Grima's silver was a healthy surprise. In fact, he improved one step over the Malta 2003 bronze medal.

This success on Friday helped to alleviate the disappointment for Frans Pace and Paul Vella in the trap and skeet disciplines. Despite some excellent shooting, Pace just missed the silver and had to be content with bronze after a shoot-off while Vella was himself disappointed with his own performance, though there were several factors which led to his missing some of the easier targets.

Another healthy surprise was the gold medal won by Marcon Bezzina on the judo mat. It earned the discipline the gold which it had become accustomed to since the Malta Games in 1993 and which it had lost two years ago in Malta.

The other bronze medals won by Reuben Micallef, Evgeny Ulanov and Michael Zahra and the silver medal in the women's team event were proof enough fo the existing talent in this squad.

In tennis, I believe we obtained a positive result. The fact that the girls maintained the results of most recent past editions shows that there is still a future in this sector while Boris Pashanski could have made it a gold had he shown a more professional attitude in the first set yesterday which he lost on a tie-break.

Getting frustrated because of an umpire's decision should not be considered as an excuse. That was, in my opinion, one reason why he lost control of his nerves and went on to lose that opening set to Benjamin Balleter of Monaco. Had we won that set, it could have been a different story.

In cycling, Roderick Muscat also did well to win a bronze medal in the time-trial but the team fell a cropper in the road race after the same Muscat unfortunately fell ill during the race and had to retire for obvious reasons.

One of the major disappointments was the women's basketball team. Despite winning the bronze medal, they confirmed their decline after the introduction of six new faces, most of them have just a little experience so far. Of course, they could not defend the Malta gold successfully for another reason. And that is simply because their opponents showed enormous progress since then, especially Iceland.

But at least they managed to beat Andorra convincingly for the bronze medal. That was, perhaps, some consolation after their previous heavy defeats against Luxembourg and Iceland.

No one ever expected our Taekwondo athletes to be among the medal winners, despite this being the inaugural tournament in these Games in this discipline.

Neville Desira lost in the match for the bronze medal, while Stephen Formosa could not do much better after having suffered an injury during training two days before the event.

I also feel I must comment on one other major disappointment - the lack of support for the Maltese athletes when they were performing. Of course, I did not expect support from those who were in action. That was impossible. But, for example, for yesterday's table-tennis semi-finals and the tennis final, I expected much better. Just a handful turned up to cheer on our table-tennis semi-finalists during their most important clashes. The number increased as the MOC officials eventually turned up for the final between the two players. The same occurred at the tennis final where apart from us journalists, only the tennis squad and some MOC officials turned up to watch Pashanski in action.

Where were all the others, especially those who had finished their commitments?