Lively competition at aggregate meet

With just eight weeks to go for the grandest athletics event ever to be staged at Marsa, a number of Maltese hopefuls are steadily coming to their best.

One such determined athlete must surely be Diane Borg, who again posted a seasonal best at an aggregate meeting held on Saturday.

As luck would have it, the volcanic-ash cloud over most of Europe's skies extended the training camp in Malta of some talented UK athletes, thereby providing the locals with excellent sparring partners.

As a result, Starmax sprinter Borg rose to the challenge and, as she did in the recent International Meet, won the 100m, her speciality, warding off Federica Foster and Savannah Echel-Thompson, of Southern Athletics, to post a time of 12.23 seconds.

Meantime, it could easily have been another record day in the optimal season being enjoyed by young Eric Borg Saywell.

With a remarkable horizontal jump of 5.22 metres, this exceptional 12-year-old would have bettered by two centimetres the distance recorded by another promising athlete, Jeremy Borg, from the same Allcomers Aloysians fold, now making a name for himself in the Under 18 category.

However, the strong following wind, just over the legal limit, prevented Borg Saywell from another day of glory, surely a postponement rather than a failure.

Among other interesting tussles, the 200m for women had Echel-Thompson proving to be a trifle better than Borg, who also had to settle for second in the 400m, on that occasion victory going to Foster.

In between, the 200m for youth boys witnessed a three-pronged battle for the honours.

Thomas Farrugia pipped at the post guest Myles Richardson in a good time of 23.79 seconds with Luke Bezzina right behind in third. A mere six tenths of a second separated the three.

Field events

On the field, Jean Paul Callus (Pembroke) had Dean Showler-Davis to contend with on his way to victory in javelin, but there was no response to the fast 10.65 seconds posted in the 100m sprint by the junior Kieran Showler-Davies, who also knew no peers in the 200m, which he covered in an equally fast 21.40 seconds.

Finally, in the two-lap event, despite the windy conditions, Neil Brimmer, of Żurrieq Wolves, produced a constant pace to finish in a time of 2 minutes and 1.23 seconds.