Vella, Farrugia lift Maltese spirits with fourth place in skeet pairs

Skeet shooters Darren Vella and Clive Farrugia came very close to winning Malta’s first medal at this year’s Commonwealth Games after placing fourth in the pairs competition yesterday.

The young Maltese duo put on a great performance at the Dr K. Singh shooting range to finish with 188 points, three clays away from a podium finish.

Farrugia hit scores of 23, 23 and 24 before wrapping up with a straight of 25 in the final round for an overall tally of 95 from 100 points. For his part, Vella obtained three successive 24s in his first three rounds before suffering a slight dip in the fourth when totalling 21 to finish with 93.

This was Malta’s best result at the Commonwealth Games so far, one that will lift the confidence of both Farrugia and Vella ahead of today’s singles.

The gold medal in the skeet pairs went to Cyprus duo Georgios Achilleos and Andreas Chasikos who defended their title with a total of 194. The performance of Achilleos stood out as the Cypriot fired four successive straights to propel his country to their first gold medal in the Delhi Games.

Canada’s Jason Hughes Caswell and Richard McBride claimed silver on countback ahead of English pair Richard Blickell and Clive Bramley after both teams finished on 191.

India were fifth on 186 points, two adrift of Malta.

In squash, Michael Fiteni and Brad Hindle Deguara were knocked out of the doubles, losing narrowly to Scotland’s Lyall Paterson and Chris Small 11-10, 11-9.

Lawn bowler Carmela Spiteri suffered two successive defeats in the singles competition yesterday. After going down 2-0 (13-4, 11-3) to Carmen Anderson, of Norfolk Islands, Spiteri lost to Canada’s Josephine Lee 5-1 in a tie-break after the match ended 1-1 (5-10, 7-5).

Today, Spiteri plays against Ali Merrien, of Guernsey, and New Zealand’s Val Smith.

In the men’s event, Shaun Parnis had mixed fortunes yesterday.

The Australian-based bowler overcame Michael Rive, of Jersey, 2-0 (11-6, 8-7) but was then beaten by Raymond Mascarenhas, of Bots-wana, 1.5-0.5 (7-7, 5-19). Today Parnis faces Rob Weale, of Wales, Leslie Lagatule, of Niue Islands, and Kassim Ampuan, of Brunei.