Nobody expected any medals for Maltese athletes participating in the Olympic Games. And none came.

We then did expect Maltese football teams taking part in European competitions to qualify from one or two qualifying rounds, and in the end only Floriana managed to do it one time before being dumped out like all other Maltese clubs – both from the Champions League and the Conference League.

Hamrun were eliminated from the Champions League and relegated to the Conference League, from which they were chucked out immediately. The other two clubs involved in the Conference League, Marsaxlokk and Sliema, were both also eliminated quickly from the competition too.

All in all, it was a summer of disappointments for Malta in terms of sports.

Once again, our limitations were exposed in full in spite of the best efforts from the athletes involved, both in Paris for the Olympic Games and across Europe in the football competitions. We are a nation that loves sports, but our successes have been too few and far between.

One may argue that there were more countries that did not win a medal than those that did. From the more than 200 nations or territories that were present for the 16-day event in Paris, 90 countries bagged at least one medal and only 63 of them had an athlete or team on the highest part of the podium.

One may also argue that nations with big populations were not even close to win a medal.

On the flipside, countries with a smaller population than Malta’s – Dominica, Grenada and Saint Lucia – did manage to have the pleasure of seeing their athletes take something home. Other small countries could celebrate winning a gold medal for the first time in their history.

There are then arguments that it is already enough for our athletes to make it to the Olympics, given the competition that exists. Yes, this is already a huge achievement, and we congratulate our athletes for representing us to the best of their abilities.

But we do wonder when our time will come. There were occasions in the past when Maltese athletes did exceptionally well in the competitions they took part in, and the possibility of winning a medal was close. This means that, given the right support and with the right talent, Maltese athletes can compete with the elite in their discipline. The question is whether we are cultivating our talent well enough and whether sport is being supported well enough. Are our administrators doing their job in identifying talent and making sure they are given the backing they require?

Over the past years, resources have increased, facilities have improved, and more money has been pumped into sport. But the results are still to come at international level.

This takes us to football, the discipline which has the most resources and which attracts the highest number of participants. No Maltese team has ever made it to the main phase of a European competition, and this year none of them were even close. And all this in spite of the investments that clubs have made, including having foreign players in their squad.

We hope that, one day, we will be writing a different editorial than this one.