No less than 41 athletes from six countries gave contest to a pick Malta team of 21 athletes and another 27 representing seven local clubs in an enjoyable afternoon of athletics at the Matthew Micallef St John Athletic Track on the last weekend of April.
The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the National Record in the Women’s Discus established by Malta’s own Antonella Chouhal with a throw of 42.20metres.
This is precisely the reason why Athletics Malta organised the event, to be able to afford our foreign competition-starved athletes the chance to rise to expectations and better their performances against talent from abroad.
That the opposition was worthy and able bears forth from the fact that out of the 27 events contested, Malta or Maltese clubs ended victorious in nine.
Northern Athletics fielded the largest team besides that from Malta and their 19 athletes, all below the age of 20, not surprisingly for the talent portrayed, managed one more victory than the local fare. Moreover, very good times and performances were also recorded by the other participants, where the Tunisians, Sofiene Labidi in the 400m men (46.86seconds), Mohamed Ali Kabou in the Javelin (67.43metres) and Mohamed Meddeb in the Shot Putt (17.49metres) outshone all opposition when posting such impressive results.
No less notable were the exploits of Daniel Abenzoar of Luxembourg in the sprints, where he recorded 10.63 in the 100m and later 21.77 seconds in the 200m.
Charlene Attard had to concede her accustomed first place in the 100m to fleet-footed Frenchwoman Emilie Gaydu who finished in an fast 11.63 seconds but later regained prestige in the 200m which she won in a season’s best of 24.99 seconds for one of Malta’s best results of the day, outside Antonella’s feat.
Other good results by the locals were those in the Discus for men, when Mario Mifsud came a mere 7cm within sight of the National Record with a personal best throw of 42.69 metres and the exciting win by Mario Debono in the 800m when he crossed the line in a time of 1:56.81.
In other events contested by an all-Maltese line-up MonaLisa Camilleri of AS Libertas recorded 5:03.17 in the 1500metres, while Libyan Haitem Kisheim in the St Patrick’s club colours won a well contested 5000m in 15:32.15 minutes.
As regards the British, watching Helen Asher sailing over the hurdles was pure delight as was the turn of speed of Carmen Gedling in the one-lap sprint.
Likewise, Harry Harper in the 1500m showed a clean pair of heels to the rest of the competition in a tactical race. Present among the dignitaries were the ambassadors of Egypt and Tunisia who, amid the agreements of the officials accompanying the teams, spoke in favour of making of this meeting an annual event.