Promising youngster Laura Sammut broke the 3,000 metres junior record last weekend. Photo: Wally Galea

It was certainly a memorable time for athletics events at the Marsa Stadium last week.

Staged over two afternoons, most satisfaction was that derived on Friday when Athletics Malta organised competitive events not usually included in the regular calendar.

Perhaps in part for this reason, but most certainly on account of the grit and determination of the athletes and their coaches, new records in the 400m hurdles and the 3,000m steeplechase tumbled.

In this latter event Mark Herrera made a return to the history books. His hand-timed 9 minutes 58.6 seconds bettered the old mark set in 1997 by Andre Camilleri by nearly 24 seconds.

Earlier, 18-year-old Daniel Saliba set a new mark by skipping over the hurdles over one lap in 61.57 seconds... 1.12 seconds faster than the previous mark set nearly 10 years ago.

To cap the day, Monalisa Camilleri also posted a good time of 12.33 minutes in the steeplechase for women and youngster Andrea Cristiano registered a 42.44-second run and jumps over a distance of 300 metres.

These results may have been the inspiration of what was to follow the following afternoon.

In the shot putt, we find Lawrence Ransley now going over the 14-metre mark with relative ease but what was really anticipated and achieved was Rebecca Camilleri leaping out 6.12 metres in the long jump – her GSSE minimum qualifying standard (MQS) qualification target.

At the same time, fast off the blocks, Andy Grech managed a sub-11 seconds result for the first time this season by clocking a good 10.93 seconds.

For another outstanding result one again needs to revert to the field where, in the discus throw, Luke Farrugia continued his steady rise in the intermediate category – youth at international level. He hurled the discus a distance of 42.80m... without any shadow of doubt much further than any other local lad his age ever did.

Last but not least, the one other record was that registered by Laura Sammut.

Running the 3,000m in a mixed gender race – in the wake of another fine athlete, Luke Camilleri – Sammut managed a junior, intermediate and youth record by stopping the clock on 10.44:24 seconds.

The mind boggles of what may hopefully lie in store for this talented runner.