Malta made it a sprint double when sprinters Darren Gilford and Charlene Attard raced to a historic double silver medal in the 100 metres dash. It is not difficult to put these achievements into perspective. Both athletes recorded Malta’s best-ever result in this race.

In 100m sprinting, where a fraction of a second can make a massive difference on the track, Gilford’s effort was flabbergasting. The Cypriot Katsantonis won by fractions of a second as Gilford clocked 10.69seconds, just 0.03 seconds behind him. But Gilford looks at it as the glass half full not half empty.

“I always to try to focus on the positives and it was not easy to race in lane eight. This is a historic medal for us. I improved on my third placing of two years ago. Next time, I try to go a step further”, he commented.

In the women’s event, the Cypriot Artymata, the clear pre-race favourite, accelerated away to win by a few metres from the impressive Charlene Attard, who settled for silver.

Charlene Attard was delighted with silver after the result meant an improvement of three places from last edition’s fifth position.

“It was planned as I hit peak form just before the games and even improved my personal best a few weeks ago, so I am really happy that everything went according to plan”.

In the 10,000 metres, Carol Walsh went all over to win her third back-to-back gold medal but had to settle for bronze as she was overtaken in the last 50 metres by Iceland’s Thordardottiv and Schmoetten from Luxembourg.

The long-distance runner admitted that she “ran out of gas in the final 50 metres due to the fact that I did not train properly in the last period due to work commitments”, she admitted.

In the men’s javelin, Jean Paul Callus threw a personal best 63.89m, adding more than five metres to the Malta javelin record but missed out on a top three place and came fifth.