Surprisingly, the last aggregate meeting before the national championships, beset with windy gusts on an overcast afternoon, athletes away on important exams and a host of nagging injuries to prominent athletes, produced some scintillating performances, crowned by a new Junior Triple Jump national record.

In addition to his consistent progress in the Long Jump event, Pembroke Athleta’s Andy Grech recently ventured into the more technical Triple Jump and immediately gave notice that in this event he also means business.

On Saturday, on his first attempt, he cleared 14.01metres to better the previous mark of his predecessor at the club, Paul Vella, by 37cm.

Earlier in the afternoon, albeit aided by a slightly over-the-limit following win, Nikolai Portelli of AS Libertas continued with his successful season when he recorded a straight 11 seconds in the 100m, a seasonal best for him.

Another athlete enjoying a high is St Patrick’s runner Haithem Ksheim, seemingly effortlessly winning the 1500m in 4 minutes 11 seconds following which he led the field to win the 5000m in a good 15 minutes 29 and a half seconds. These doubles were repeated by Mario Mifsud in the throws and up and coming youngsters Thomas Farrugia (Starmax) and Christian Luke Chetcuti (Allcomers).

Both these promising lads are out gunning for records with the nearest seemingly the latter, who is now less than two seconds away from the 1500m record for youths.

Another lad who aspires to go into the books at 100m is Pembroke’s Clayton Sheldon. His fine 11.7 seconds in this sprint event is just a whisker away from the 11.54-second national record.

Among the females, Francesca Xuereb and her twin Martina, for Starmax, again shone in the one-lap sprint, Francesca edging out her sister when she stopped the clock on a very good 56.8 seconds.

Angie Mangion (Pembroke) made it a double in the horizontal jumps, as did youngster Rachel Bezzina, for Zurrieq Wolves, again in the Long Jump and in the 100m.

Another good performance in the Long Jump for Youths was the 5.33 metres cleared by Tamara Vella for Pembroke, but the event that must have derived the most personal satisfaction was the 5000m women. In this event, Giselle Camilleri of St Patrick’s continued on her come-back following a nagging injury by clocking marginally over 18 seconds to qualify for a place on the AASSE (Small Nations Combined) Team to contest the European Cup Second Division at the end of June.