The Malta Olympic Committee brought together at Palazzo Parisio the Malta Team contingent of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games to celebrate the athletes’ achievements and making of sports history having won two medals at such high ranking multi disciplinary games.
A silver medal was won by Rebecca Madyson in trap shooting and a Bronze one by William Chetcuti in the double trap.
The Malta Team had many notable highlights and came close to reaping more medals, but had to make do with fourth place in three disciplines, which included the lawn bowls team in the pairs and singles and weightlifter Lindsay Borg.
The Malta contingent for these Games increased from 34 members to 47 and covered eight disciplines, two more than the last games: basketball, cycling, lawn bowls, shooting, squash, table tennis, swimming and weightlifting. Malta placed 21st (total medals table) out of 71 nations in the Commonwealth, representing over a third of the world’s population.
At this activity the president of the MOC, Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco spoke about how the MOC plans for these games came to fruition; “our main objective was to better our results obtained at the previous games in both colour and quantity – this we achieved!”
He hailed the support and friendships developed between the contingent and especially the interactions with the Maltese-Australian athletes which served to enhance the atmosphere and relations of the whole team.
He also announded that the MOC had managed to acquire three sponsorships for Maltese athletes from the IOC, the Commonwealth Games Federation and the Mediterranean Games Executive.
General Secretary Joseph Cassar has concluded the agreement on behalf of the MOC with the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) which agreement provides for various technical exchanges of athletes and coaches both in Italy and Malta.
MOC President, Mr. Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco went on to say that “our athletes are slowly but surely showing that they can compete in any major competition and if we keep investing in the best talents, Malta can envisage more success”. He then went on to present, along side Mr. Pippo Psaila and other MOC directors, bonuses to athletes both Rebecca Madyson (who was not present) and William Chetcuti.
He added that it was the MOC’s objective to continue investing and looking ahead to continuously prepare our athletes for such high level games. Investment and funding is crucial for success and a similar approach to that of the Melbourne Games, if not higher, will be adopted for the next Games in New Delhi in 2010.
Athletes William Chetcuti (Shooting), Marcon Bezzina (Judo) and Diane Borg (Athletics) have just been awarded a scholarship by the IOC – Olympic Solidarity.
During this activity the agreement was formally signed by these athletes, the respective federations, Secretary Joseph Cassar and President Lino Farrugia Sacco.