Malta's triples team reach last eight in lawn bowls

Malta's triples team are through to the quarter-finals of the lawn bowls competition at the Commonwealth Games after beating Canada 2-0 yesterday to make it three wins from three matches in pool C.

The Maltese side, formed by Australia-based players Joe Attard, Victor Brincat and Alfred Vella, won a balanced first set 9-8 before wrapping up victory 8-5 in the second set.

Malta lead pool C with six points and are now sure of clinching one of the two top spots regardless of the outcome of today's final group match against Australia.

In the lawn bowls pairs event, Malta suffered its first defeat at the hands of Cook Islands 2-1 in pool B. Leonard Callus and Francis Vella looked well on course to build on Thursday's 2-1 success over England after coasting through the first set 11-3.

However, they failed to maintain their momentum and lost the second set, 9-7, and the tiebreak 2-0. Today, the Maltese pair play against Samoa.

The clay shooting competitions got underway yesterday with Frans Pace and Stanley Cardona competing for Malta in the trap pairs event. Pace and Cardona each hit 83 clays from 100 for a total of 166 and an overall placing of 13th out of 23 pairs. The gold medal was won by the Australian pair of Michael Diamond and Adam Vella, a relative of Malta's Pace, who shot a total of 189.

Malta's women's basketball team endured a difficult start to their pool B commitments, slumping to a heavy 127-47 defeat to New Zealand. Josephine Grima was Malta's top scorer with 19 points.

Santino Coppa's girls will play against Nigeria tomorrow. Yesterday, the Africans beat Malaysia 97-67.

Malta's participation

Meanwhile, swimmer Angela Galea resumes her Commonwealth Games participation when she takes part in the 100m butterfly heats today. Galea will swim in heat three which also features Australia's Libby Lenton who has a personal best of 57.35 in the 100m fly.

In squash, Joseph Desira, who on Thursday was eliminated in the last 32 of the men's singles competition, will figure in the positional play-offs.