At only the second track and field meeting of the season, the year is already showing promise. Another event at which only a handful of athletes devote energy and enthusiasm, the triple jump, provided up and coming junior athlete Tamara Vella with another opportunity to better the national mark at her category.

In fact, with only one valid jump, Vella bettered the distance established by herself in Tours France last year by another 14cm to reach the 11.82-metre mark.

Earlier on in the afternoon, the attention focused mainly on the sprinting events – always the most popular – where many athletes hope to achieve the qualifying standards set by Athletics Malta that will enable them to be selected for the European Indoor Championships in Paris in March.

Diane Borg is a whisker away from reaching this standard and as at the first meeting again posted good times of 7.89 and 7.84 seconds to retain her credentials for selection. In the meantime, Charlene Attard continued with her comeback from injury and this bodes well for the summer competitions, particularly the Games for the Small States of Europe.

In the same event for the men, Andy Grech and Karl Farrugia posted identical times of 7.14 and 7.10 seconds when they finished in a dead-heat in both the semi-final and the final with Rachid Chouhal hot on their heels on both occasions.

Rachid was also prominent in the Long Jump where he was only a centimetre short of seven metres. Rebecca Camilleri, who at this meet decided to concentrate only on this event, had a very good jump measured at 6.07 metres.

Also encouraging for the association is the constant good showing of Neil Brimmer, this time round competing in a 600m event at which he clocked a good time of 1 minute 23.38 seconds.

Similarly, at the same distance, Celine Pace made a welcome return to competition and stopped the clock on a creditable 1 minute 35.0 seconds.

The wrap up event in this series will be today, where the presence of a Maltese residing in Britain, 16-year-old James Armani, in the triple jump for men, will certainly add spice to the programme, with the first event commencing at 1.30pm in the afternoon.