Sasha Gatt became Malta’s third gold medallist in this year’s Small Nations Games, as she swam her way to victory on Tuesday afternoon.

Gatt competed in the Women’s 800m Freestyle at Andorra’s Centre Esportiu Serradells on Tuesday late afternoon.

She emerged victorious with a time of 8:49.74 – enough to beat out swimmers from Monaco and Luxembourg, who won the silver and bronze medals respectively, together with others from host nation Andorra and Iceland.

Aged just 19, Gatt is already a two-time Olympian as she represented Malta at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and the 2024 Olympics in Paris, where she was one of Malta’s flagbearers.

She won four medals at the last GSSEs in 2023, which were held in Malta, but none of them were gold: she took home three silvers and a bronze.  This time around, however, her quest for gold was successful.

Gatt was not the only one to come away with a medal in the pool on Tuesday: Nirvana Micallef won the silver medal in the Women’s 200m Butterfly race, falling short of a gold medal by just half a second.

Malta has now won three gold medals and is a third of the way towards its target of nine, which would signify the country’s best showing at a foreign-hosted Small Nations Games.

Jessica Vella won Malta’s first gold of the day in the Women’s Kata in karate, while duo Maria-Carmelia Iacob and Renata Strbikova triumphed in the Women’s Doubles Table Tennis.