The trio of Track and Field com-petitions held before the Malta Marat-hon came to an end on Saturday.

This pre-season meeting saw a good turnout of athletes as it featured competitors from the age of 12 and the participation of a group of British youngsters from the Barry and Vale Harriers club. This team was here for warm-weather training during a mid-year break from school, giving the locals a rare taste of foreign competition.

It, therefore, seemed appropriate that the best results of the day belonged to the younger athletes. Chronologically, however, the first notable result was the effort of Diane Borg, 19, in the 60m sprint.

In her first try this year, this Starmax sprinter, albeit against a headwind, stopped the clock on 7.93 seconds, the best so far this season for the event.

The wind was blowing the other way for Eric Borg Saywell (Allcomers Aloysians) in the 100m for cadet boys, but his time of 12.57 seconds indicates that the national category record at this event is well within his reach.

The same can be said for Nicole Gatt in the 600m. Fresh from her national category record in the 1,200m just before Christmas, the Starmax runner came very near with her time of 1:41.61 minutes.

To cap a good outing for Starmax, Thomas Farrugia established the first national record of the year. This youngster set a blistering pace to go all round the 400m loop and stop the clock on 52.52 seconds, shaving seven thousands of a second off the previous mark.

This was the last track event of the day but in between there were other noticeable results.

These came about from most of the sprinters in the 60m as well as Christian Luke Chetcuti (Allcomers) in the 3,000m, Rebecca Sare (Pembroke Athleta), who won the long jump in a personal best effort, and 14-year-old Arran Reid (Barry and Vale) who clocked 11.73 seconds in the 100m.