Fine showings as track season kicks off

The dream of every athlete lies with the feat of one day representing the country in high profile meetings and this year's calendar presents quite a few of these opportunities with the Malta Invitational coming up in April and followed by the GSSE, the European Cup, EYOF and the World Championships.

With such challenges ahead, expectations are high, the pressure kicks in and the game is on.

In Malta, the athletic season got underway with a meeting earlier this month at Marsa. Although it's still early days, one could notice that all eyes were on the look-out for any promising talent with enough potential to steal the limelight this year.

The highlight of the meet came late in the day when Steve Camilleri grabbed everyone's attention with an impeccable performance in the 300m race.

He powered out of the blocks and never looked back despite having the established Nicolai Portelli breathing down his neck. Camilleri held on to win in 36.09s.

The throwers also produced some results to watch out for so early in the season as Antonella Chouhal and Mario Mifsud registered distances of 39.10m and 42.36m respectively.

Youth category shot putt throwers Daniel Vella and Ramona Vassallo also left their mark with 11.53m and 9.76m respectively, which shows promise for the future.

The first track meet also saw the return of long jump record holder, Rashid Chouhal. On the day, he managed to hold off his rivals with a winning leap of 6.82m, sending out an early-season warning that more of his best is still to come.

Road Running League leader, Giselle Camilleri, also made an appearance on the track to record an easy win over 3,000m, in 10 mins 45.28 secs. In the men's race, clear favourite Haithem Kisheim lived up to expectations, crossing the line in 9 mins 12.02 secs ahead of Gerald Grech and Mario Pisani.

Meanwhile, 12-year-old Nicole Gatt, now focused on track after a satisfactory cross country season, ran an impressive 600m in 1:49.75. Her timing is still some eight seconds off the record for the category held by Martina Xuereb but Gatt should still not be overlooked.

But, for most, the thrill of such meets lies within the sprinting events.

In the 60m dash, Owen Camilleri blasted out of the blocks to clock a remarkable 7.14 secs for the fastest time of the day.

In the women's events, Charlene Attard dominated both sprints confirming she's still the country's no.1 coming into the new season.

Jana Pace Cocks sliced off 0.5 secs off her best performance last year over 300m.