The Malta Amateur Athletic Association is making preparations to host an International Track and Field Meeting which is being held on Saturday, 26 April.

Up till now, the association has confirmation that three foreign teams will be taking part. These are a team of 20 athletes from the North of England, a team of 20 athletes representing the Athletic Federation of Egypt and a team of 10 athletes from the Athletic Federation of Tunisia.

The objective of the association for the holding of this meeting is to give a good number of local athletes the chance – as a team – to meet good quality competition in their own usual environment where they are surrounded by their friends and relatives and supported by their coaches.

The local team will include most of the athletes which took part in the Games of the Small States of Europe in Monaco, as well as some others for whom this would be their first international encounter.

I am sure that there is quite a number of athletes who are training hard and are aspiring to be included in the team which will be taking part in the GSSE in Cyprus next year. These athletes deserve the opportunity to be included in this event.

There is also a good chance that the local team will include a young (17-year-old) athlete, by the name of Michael Fraser, who has Maltese parentage and who is very keen to represent Malta. Michael is a good 400m runner who recently clocked 50.23secs in the event and has a PB of 50.20secs.

In the meantime the association is also in contact with a team of French athletes who are thinking of coming over to Malta for their training camp and who have been invited to take part in this international meeting as well.

All in all, it should be one of the best if not the best international meeting ever held in Malta.

It should be a good opportunity for local athletes to do their best to improve performances, apart from also producing a number of new national records.