The improvement registered in athletics in the past two years was confirmed in Reykjavik, Iceland, last weekend as the Malta Team finished a creditable ninth out of 15 participants at the European Championships 3rd league.

Thanks to Athletics Malta, I had the opportunity to watch this year’s championship after having had the occasion to experience a first Maltese participation last year during the championships in Malta, during which Malta had also finished ninth.

Malta was represented with a team of 30 athletes in Iceland. That is certainly quite a number but it was made clear by Athletics Malta president Anthony Chircop that some of the athletes were being given the opportunity to take part in disciplines which were certainly not their favourites.

This was done not only by Malta, but by at least another five nations for two different reasons. First, especially in the case of Malta, the local athletics association is keen to introduce these disciplines – hammer throw, hurdles, 3,000m steeplechase and pole vault – among local athletes. Secondly, participation in these events brought about points for overall classification purposes – this was a team, not an individual event. And that is primarily why all nations make it a point to present an athlete in all disciplines at such a championship.

It is unfortunate that only a few have so far responded to Athletics Malta’s call. But there has been a start and although results in these disciplines might not have been that encouraging, it was evident that all the participants did their very best and later expressed their wish to show further improvement in future.

One of these athletes was Gerald Grech, now an established long distance runner. In Reykjavik he took part in the 3,000m steeplechase where he finished last. As he himself told me, it was only the second time that he was taking part in such an event. But since his first occasion last year, he improved his time by a good 31 seconds.

The same may be said of Mona Lisa Camilleri who finished 10th out of 12 competitors in the women’s event. Certainly not a bad start for these two athletes in the hope that they will eventually find other challengers.

Hammer throwers Mario Mifsud and Antonella Chouhal were also relative newcomers to the scene. Considering the lack of technique, they did, perhaps, more than was expected of them, with Antonella even claiming a new national record.

If both athletes are provided with a specialised coach, I feel they are both potential throwers who can obtain good results in the near future.

In the pole vault, Rebecca Camilleri and Andy Grech were also relative newcomers in this event.

For Camilleri, it was also a great satisfaction as she jumped 2.70m to register a new national record, thus confirming her improvement. She is normally a long distance jumper. But in Reykjavik, apart from the long jump and the pole vault, she even helped the relay 4 x 100m team to a splendid win in the heat.

Grech is also known to be a long jumper. But like Camilleri, he also helped the relay 4 x 100m team to win their heat in an impressive manner.

In this article, it is impossible to go on mentioning every athlete and comment on their performances. However, I deem it fit to say that Diane Borg also had good runs in the 100m and 200m – even in the relay 100m event. In so doing she placed third in all three events – a satisfactory result even if she was slightly slower than in Liechtenstein a few weeks earlier.

One has to consider several factors before coming to conclusions. First of all, as most of the athletes who were at the Liechtenstein Games remarked, it was not easy to recover from that event to be in perfect condition for the Iceland Championship. It was evident that their focus had been on Liechtenstein where they reached their peak.

Moreover, this time they were competing against stronger opponents from Israel, Cyprus, Moldova, Macedonia and Iceland, to mention just a few. Some of their competitors, especially those in the field events, showed that they were well above the standard of a third division.

All this goes on to confirm that Malta again did well in these championships, even if there is still more room for improvement. The ninth placing for a second consecutive year justified Malta’s decision a few years ago to take part under Malta’s name and not as a part of the Small States of Europe team.

Let us also not forget that one of our brightest athletics prospects, Nicole Gatt, was unable to take part in these championships as she was considered ineligible because she is still under age.

Her performances in the past few weeks had surprised all in the athletics field. The same might have happened to some athletes from other nations who had to be left at home. I think this is a sort of discrimination that young athletes are not allowed to take part in such events, which, of course, cannot be considered as Open events.

I sincerely hope that such an anomaly will be discussed favourably when Athletics Europe meets again to consider the next Championship.