Pace breaks long jump record

The women's long jump record, that stood for seven years, met its fate last Saturday when Żurrieq Wolves' 2009 Athlete of the Year, Alessandra Pace, laid it to rest at 6.07 metres, a 12-centimetre improvement on the old mark.

The athletics event, the Malta International Invitational Meeting now in its second year on the official European Athletics calendar, attracted 158 athletes of whom 82 hailed from 14 federations or clubs from abroad.

The largest contingent was from the UK but even here, diversity ruled the day with the largest groups, Northern Athletics, having 20 athletes and the Southern UK region fielding eight. Twelve others from clubs in south London also made their presence felt.

However, with 24 members, Swedish club IK Haharpspojkarna was the outfit most represented at Marsa.

The guests were aiming for different goals, with many youngsters from the British Isles seeking to reach qualification standards for the Commonwealth Youth Games, the European Youth Olympic Trials or the World Junior Championships.

One contender, Nick Miller (Northern Athletics) cleared 66.20m in the hammer and his team-mate, Yasmin Spencer, recorded 12.97m in the shot.

Malta's future hopes, Marija Sciberras (Libertas), Jeremy Borg (Allcomers) and Clayton Sheldon and Tamara Vella (Pembroke), were unfazed by the competition from overseas.

Borg, winning the high jump, again improved on his previous mark to raise the bar to 1.80m, the highest ever recorded by a boy his age. Sciberras had her first taste of the 400m hurdles where she finished second and was yet again runner-up in her favourite 100m hurdles.

At 11.32 seconds Sheldon recorded his best ever time over the classical sprint, only the second Maltese behind the more-quoted Rachid Chouhal, while in the mirror event for women, Vella recorded a season best of 12.97, which, incidentally, was a triumph for Diane Borg (Starmax) with her time of 12.39.

Other local senior athletes made the most of foreign competition, recording encouraging results.

In field events, Mario Mifsud (Allcomers) threw a discus 38.15m and managed 11.93m in the shot.

Jean Paul Callus (Pembroke) recorded 56.76m in javelin and Antonella Chouhal (Libertas) had a go at the hammer (25.59m) and hurled the discus 36.97m.

Andy Grech had a personal best of 7.24m in the long jump but other results by guests Naomi Reed in the triple jump (12.10m), Kieran Showler-Davis who won both sprints - 100m in 10.52 and 21.11 in the 200m - Jack Green's 48.26 in the 400m and Phil Hurst's time of 3.58.80 in the 1,500m, deserve every merit.

So does that by Swede Anna Ek in the hammer (36.98m) and the victory of the sole competitor from the Isle of Man, Harriet Pryke. She stopped the clock on 56.50 seconds in the 400m for women.