The COJI Games in Sardinia have come to an end and the Maltese contingent is back home.
Maltese athletes again did well on the third day of competition.
In gymnastics the Maltese athletes won 10 medals in all.
Kirsty Caruana was the main protagonist with two gold medals in floor and vaults and another two bronze medals on bars and beam.
Andreana Zammit was also successful as she won gold on bars, got silver medals on floor and beam and bronze medal on vault.
In Athletics, Rebecca Fitz competed in the Triple Jump managing a worthy fourth place which was relevant for the final team classification. In the boys’ events, Bradley Mifsud secured a bronze medal in the Javelin which added more points to the team.
At the end of the programme both genders ran the relay made up of four legs 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m.
Malta’s men team was: Nicholas Mallia, Luke Bezzina, Eric Borg Saywell and Thomas Farrugia who were fourth all along from seven teams.
Malta’s girls team consisted of Thalia Massa, Robyn Zammit, Rebecca Fitz and Nicole Gatt who managed to progress the teams’ placing from fourth to third winning a bronze medal in the process.
Earlier Nicole Gatt had also won a silver medal after finishing csecond in the 400m event.
In the final classification, out of 11 islands participating, the girls team finished seventh and the boys’ team was sixth while the overall classification of the Maltese athletics team was that of sixth.
In the Sailing events, Optimist Class, Thomas Bonello Ghio and Zach Zammit finished in the 10th and 13th place respectively from 21 competitors and in the women’s category, Rebecca Briffa finished 10th from 20 competitors.
In Judo, Francesco Aufieri had won a silver medal in the +73kg category.
Swimmers win six medals
Young swimmers managed to win six medals in total including one gold, which was a first ever, one silver and four bronze .
Michael Umnov won gold in 200m breast stroke with a time of 2:27.02, bronze in 100m breast stroke with a time of 1:08.50 and bronze in 200m Individual Medley with a time of 2:17.00
Amy Micallef got silver 200m breast stroke with a time of 2:49.65
Julian Harding won bronze in 50m breast stroke with a time of 32.07 seconds and bronze in 50m butterfly stroke with a time of 27.70 seconds.
This was a notable improvement from the last edition when Malta only manged to get a silver medal.
Moreover the swimming team moved up three places to fourth position in the overall points position and missed third place by a few points.. Fourth placings were also obtained by various swimmers in various races.