Swimming, athletics yield more medals for Malta

A clutch of Maltese athletes emerged from the third day of the FISEC Games with their sporting reputations enhanced after a spate of medals were won on the athletics track at Marsa and at the Tal-Qroqq national pool.

Charlene Attard stole the show at the Matthew Micallef St John athletics track with a double success in the 100m and the 300m events. In the sprint event, Attard dashed home first in 12.39. Chloe Prudost of France was second in 12.69 ahead of Malta's Lara Scerri (12.79).

In the 300m final, Malta completed a clean sweep of honours as Attard again finished first in 40.24, Scerri (41.02) was second and Diane Borg placed third in 42.75.

Jeandre Mallia took silver in the men's 100m after placing second in the final in 11.15, a mere 0.02 seconds behind winner Pierre Andre Denis of France.

In the 1,500m final, Joelle Cortis's second place ensured another silver medal. India Lee of Great Britain was the winner of this race in 4:58.09.

Alistair Bezzina placed third in the men's 1,500 final with a time of 4:08.31 to land bronze.

Malta's 4x400m boys' team wrapped up a positive day in athletics when winning a bronze medal. The Maltese quartet, made up of Matthew Crocker, Andrea Camilleri, Alistair Bezzina and Ian Ellul, finished behind winners Portugal and France in a time of 3:33.69.

Another gold for Mangion

Maltese swimmers added four more medals to Tuesday's tally of six when yesterday they won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.

Davina Mangion once again grabbed the limelight when in the morning she won gold in the 400m freestyle which also brought her the satisfaction of another personal best.

The 17-year-old swimmer won an exciting duel with Rebecca Golightly of Great Britain to finish in 4:40.99 and just 0.2 seconds in front of her opponent.

Later on Mangion swum another personal best of 2:28.49 in the 200 fly but could only finish fourth.

Kyle Scerri also more than lived up to expectations when he added a silver medal to the one he won on Tuesday.

His time of 2:18.69 helped him to another age-group (category D) record, an improvement of 1.38 seconds on the time set by Neil Agius last December in the 200m butterfly. Scerri then went on to clinch bronze in the 50m fly which also earned him a third age-group record of 28.13 seconds registered in the morning heats.

A personal best of 58.07 in the 100m free confirmed that the 15-year-old had peaked at the right time this year.

The other individual medal was won by Francesca Paolella, 14, in the 100 breaststroke which she swam in 1:19.77 to gather her third bronze medal after the two she won on Tuesday.

There were other satisfactory placings for Maltese swimmers who won places in the finals of some other events.

At the De La Salle College, the Malta Futsal team reached the final after they beat Spain B 6-1. Tomorrow, they face Portugal who yesterday saw off Spain A 9-4.

Other Results...

Basketball: (boys) - Spain A vs France 45-134; Malta vs Flanders 56-82; Portugal vs Italy 80-88. (Girls) - Austria vs Spain A 32-48; Flanders vs Portugal 79-21; Malta vs Spain B 65-35; Italy vs Spain A 37-46; France vs Hungary 92-62; Austria vs Portugal 27-34.

Football: Spain A vs Flanders 2-1; Great Britain vs Spain B 1-0; Netherlands B vs Malta 0-2.

Futsal: Spain B vs Malta 1-6; Portugal vs Spain A 9-4.

Volleyball: (girls) Malta vs Spain B 3-0 (played on Tuesday).Spain A vs France 0-3; Malta vs Portugal 1-3 (26-24, 9-25, 16-25, 16-25); Britain vs Netherlands 0-3; Flanders vs Spain B 3-0. (Boys) Spain vs Flanders 0-3; Malta vs France 0-3.

Handball: (boys) Portugal vs Malta 17-16; Spain vs France 21-29. (Girls) Malta vs Netherlands 8-12; Hungary vs Portugal 12-30.

Table-Tennis: Team event - (boys) Malta Falcons vs Malta Knights 1-3; Malta Eagles vs Spain 0-3; France vs Spain 0-3; Malta Eagles vs Malta Falcons 1-3. (Girls) Spain vs Malta Eagles 3-0; Malta Falcons vs Malta Eagles 3-0; France vs Spain 1-3; Malta Knights vs Malta Falcons 2-3.

Tennis: Singles - (girls) S. Sullivan bt C. Casterman 6-0 6-0; F. Giorgardes bt A. Bartolo 6-1 6-0; S. Sullivan bt C. Bosch 6-1 6-1; J. Veek bt A. Bartolo 6-0 6-0; R. Genise bt D. Mangion 6-0 1-6 7-6; S. Kuypers bt D. Mangion 6-2 6-0; S. Sullivan bt F. Veek 6-0 6-1. (Boys) M. Esser bt M. Ferrante 6-0 6-1; M. Ferrante bt S. Matteo 6-0 6-1. C. Zammit bt C. Beuter 6-3 5-7 7-6; C. Zammit bt U. Mano 6-0 6-0; R. Quadden bt A. Calleja 6-4 6-2; A. Calleja bt A. Renkens 6-3 4-6 8-6.