The Malta Amateur Athletic Association is currently finalising arrangements to send a group of young athletes to Brno, a city in the Czech Republic, to participate in an international athletics meeting which is specifically meant to motivate young but promising athletes.

The meeting is being held between 20 and 21 September. The local athletes will be taking part in the 60m, 300m, 600m, 1500m, Long Jump, and 4 x 60m relay.

The athletes, whose ages vary between 12 and 15, who will be making the trip to Brno, are the following:-

Girls: Ingrid Abela; Jana Pace Cocks; Rebecca Farrugia; Julie A. Grech; Dorianne Micallef; Maria Mizzi, Rebecca Sare; Maria Sciberras; Tamara Vella, Francesca Xuereb; Martina and Jasmine Zammit.

Boys: Jeremy Borg, Ezekiel Micallef, Sacha Dunlop; Michael Sullivan and Andrew Cassar Torregiani.

It has now been established that there would be a total of around 730 young athletes participating in this meeting where apart the 400 athletes coming from the Czech Republic, another 330 athletes will be coming from Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lituania, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia.

The Council of the MAAA attaches a lot of importance to the development of the sport which is why each year it tries to find a competition of the right level for young athletes.

Some of the athletes taking part are already eyeing the GSSE Games and such competition cannot but give them that little extra confidence in themselves to make the grade.

It is understand that this competition is an EU assisted project which also has the support or approval of the European Athletic Association

Mrs Tania Xuereb, an MAAA council member, will be acting as yeam leader.