Malta’s first performer at the London 2012, Andrew Chetcuti, exited the Games on a positive note yesterday after clocking a new national record for the 100m freestyle race.

Chetcuti, 19, finished third in the 100 metres heats at the Aquatics Centre, touching the board in 51.67 seconds to better the previous best time for the sprint distance (51.85) which he had established at the Swimming Championships for Small Nations in Andorra in June.

The heat was won by Sidni Hoxha, of Albania, in 51.11sec with Kevin Avila Soto, of Guatemala, second in 51.44sec.

Chetcuti finished ahead of Jemal le Grand (Aruba – 51.86), Andrew Rutherford (Bolivia – 52.57), Mohammed Bi-daryan (Iran – 52.93), Christopher Duenas (Guam – 53.37) and Mikayel Koloyan (Armenia – 53.82).

In the overall classification, Chetcuti was classified 39th from 56 swimmers with the top 16 progressing to the semi-finals later on in the day.

The best time of the morning heats belonged to Nathan Adrian (US) in 48.19 seconds. Burundi swimmer, Bertrand Beni Binobagira, was bottom of the list after swimming the 100m in 1:04.57.

Chetcuti, the only Maltese swimmer to go below the 52-second mark for the 100m, was the first of five Team Malta athletes taking part at the Games in London.

William Chetcuti follows tomorrow in the Double Trap shoot and swimmer Nicola Muscat and track sprinter Diane Borg will be in action on Friday in the 50m and 100m heats respectively.

The other member in Team Malta, Rachid Chouhal, runs in the 100m heats at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday.