The president of the Maltese Olympic Committee, Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco yesterday showered praise of the six athletes who represented Malta at the European youth Olympic Festival in Belgrade, Serbia, last week.

Francesca Xuereb came in for some special praise after getting very close to the podium, finishing fourth in the 400m final.

The ninth European Youth Olympic Festival was held between 22 and 28 July with the following sports disciplines:

Athletics, Swimming, Judo, Basketball, Volleyball, Water Polo, Handball, Table Tennis, Gymnastics, Tennis and Cycling.

Malta took part with six athletes – four in athletics (Francesca Xuereb, Martina Xuereb, Alessandra Pace and Andy Grech) and two in judo (Alexander Attard and Aaron Bezzina).

This time round, Malta obtained quite an excellent result in such high-level competition when Francesca Xuereb just missed winning a bronze medal, finishing fourth in the 400m event. The 16-year-old clocked 55.47 seconds to finish fourth, just 0.41 seconds behind bronze medallist Olha Zemlyak, of Ukraine, who clocked 55.06.

Earlier in June, Francesca had won three medals for Malta at the Monaco Games for European Small States.

Joe Cassar, the secretary general of the Maltese Olympic Committee, who was also the president of the Co-ordinating Commission at the Games, said the event proved to be successful despite the number of difficulties encountered. He explained that it took quite some time for the committee to convince the organisers that there needed to be venues of a very good level as well as an Olympic village with all the comforts for the athletes.

He added that despite everything, the competitions were a success, even if on some occasions, it was very hot with temperatures reaching the 46C mark.

Envic Galea, the Director of Youth of the Maltese Olympic Committee, said Francesca Xuereb’s fourth placing – very close to the bronze medal – was not a fluke. “It was the result of the preparations that had been made before the event. These positive results in Belgrade confirm that we need to invest more in our athletes. These have been encouraging results and with the 2010 World Games looming ahead, we must start preparations from now,” he said.

Galea said one of the projects for the period 2007/2008 is the Club Mark. It is intended to increase sport membership, to recognise an accredited club, member of an affiliated federation, through a common approach to branding.

It is also earmarked to ensure sport’s national governing bodies (NGBs) have core common criteria to ensure good practice runs through all development and accreditation schemes. It is also aimed at empowering parent(s) carer(s) in choosing a club for their children.

Such things should help, among others, in ensuring the well-being of young people while in the care of adults, other than their legal parent(s), apart from enabling youngsters to use their leisure time creatively, therefore helping to develop their own talents.

Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco said these Games are of a very high level with the athletes probably taking part in the Olympics later on in their careers.

After mentioning the ages for each discipline (generally between 13 and 17 years) he said that only Luxembourg, of the eight small countries managed to win a bronze medal. Even Small Nations Games prospective members Montenegro, with a population of over 620,000, failed to get among the medal winners. And four others, that is, Albania, Armenia, FYROM and Moldova, who had populations of over two million, also failed to win a medal.

Farrugia Sacco said that Greece won just one bronze medal at these Games and this shows how high the level of the Games was. He added: “This is why we say that Francesca Xuereb’s result was excellent, because she was so close to a bronze medal win. Had she finished third it would have placed us alongside Greece in the medals table.”

He said Malta had never obtained such good results. “This was a very important result for Francesca and the other athletes as it was obtained at high level Games and therefore it was much more difficult than when competing at Small Nations Games levels,” he said.

“Was it luck or good planning?,” he asked. The MOC president was sure that it was the way all – the athlete, the coach, the MAAA, her parents and the MOC – had planned together that such a result became possible. But one must also recognise the fact that her regular participation in international competitions, thanks to the funds provided by the MOC, was a major factor behind her continued improvement.

“We continue to insist that funds allocated to us are not adequate, otherwise we would even fare better. Government involvement in sport should be bigger. Youths are to be given much more importance. They are the future of sport in Malta and that is where we need to invest heavily to be optimistic about sports’ future in Malta,” he said.

At the end of his speech, Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco said he will soon be presenting a motion for the Maltese Olympic Committee council to discuss ‘to increase funds for the youth scheme to give more possibilities to our promising youngsters’.