Last Saturday, athletics saw the largest number of athletes participating in the preliminaries during the Special Olympics in Shanghai with Special Olympics Malta.

Ruth Galea participated in walking, classifying in the fifth position while Claudio Dalli classified in the second place in the 400 metre race, gaining a personal record of 1:01.62. Claudio Dalli also participated in the 100-metre sprint and classified in the fourth position. Ishamel Falzon also participated in the 100 metre race in a different category and classified in the third position. Sera Baker classified in the fifth position whilst Sera Caruana classified in the third position.

In the gymnastics preliminaries, Nathalie Galea and Brian Muscat gained positive results.

On Sunday, in swimming, Malta gained another two bronze medals and now has a total of one gold, one silver and four bronze in swimming. Charmaine Mifsud went in behind participants from Jamaica and Macao participants and Silvana Cassar finished the race behind Hungarian and Chinese participants.

In the 50 metre backstroke for men and 50 metres breast stroke for women preliminaries, Jonathan Borg classified in the first position in his heat while Mark Zammit Cutajar classified in the third position. Charmaine Mifsud classified in the first position and Silvana Cassar came third.

Also encouraging were the results of the local athletes in the athletics preliminaries. The team composed of Ishamel Falzon, Amanda Baker, Sera Caruana and Claudio Dalli came second in their 4 x 100 metre heat with good prospects for a medal.