Sheffield trip boosts Borg's preparation

The new year marks the start of the track and field season as the competitions slowly start picking up. Most athletes, however, have long since resumed their training with some looking at foreign competition in order to boost their preparation.

One such athlete is Starmax AC's Diane Borg. She has been training more seriously since being given the Olympic Solidarity Scholarship so as to fulfil the aim of such award.

Gaining international experience is one way to do this and one of the first trips identified by her coach Mark Farrugia, himself back from a trip to Kenya where he sat for the IAAF Level II coaching course thanks to the sponsorship of the MAAA, was in an indoor arena.

Sheffield, with its indoor state-of-the-art sport facilities run by the English Institute of Sport, offered an ideal race track for the upcoming Borg.

As with her other training camps and experiences abroad, she was joined by a training partner, this time Mario Debono, a relative newcomer to the sport.

Debono used to play soccer but has now set his sights on an individual career in athletics. Still very young, he has much more to learn so this indoor experience will serve him well for the future.

Borg was first to get into action in Sheffield since the 60m heats were the third event on the programme. This was Borg's opportunity to try the new starting-block measurements which she has to adapt to each year due to her limb growth.

Racing the 60m dash without an influencing wind was also a new sensation for her. In Malta, 90 per cent of our days are windy so training and racing without any wind is rare.

Within less than eight seconds from the starting gun, the race was over. Borg was first in her heat with an official time of 7.95s. With this time she placed second best on the day since a senior opponent who raced against male sprinters produced a 7.93s result.

Debono then took part in the 1,000m race. He started with other eight runners in the first heat. Since he has little experience at racing, Debono retreated to the back of the pack until the third lap.

On starting the fourth lap he attacked, coming back to third place with the first two runners clearly in front. In the final lap, however, he was challenged and overtaken by one runner and then during the last 30m most runners attacked and the photo-finish determined that the Maltese had placed seventh overall in 2:36.36.

Later on, although slightly tired, Debono ran a 300m in 39.25 while Borg's 300m was 41.54 which is a personal best performance.

On her return to Malta, Borg thanked the Malta Olympic Committee and MAAA for their assistance. She was also supported by Leppin and Powerbreathe who also sponsor Debono and Starmax AC head coach Farrugia.