Team Malta yesterday failed to add to their paltry haul of just two gold medals as the Games of the Small States of Europe came to a close with a series of track and field finals at the Josy Barthel Stadium in Luxembourg.

The outcome left the country well short of expectations as our athletes will be returning home this evening with a tally of 26 medals – two gold, 10 silver and 14 bronze – which leaves us in seventh place in the overall classification with the only participants lagging behind being Andorra and San Marino.

Hosts Luxembourg showed they ‘were ready for the Games’ as they topped the classification with a staggering 36 golds, seven more than Iceland and Cyprus.

In five days of competition last week, Luxembourg athletes claimed more than a 100 places on the podium to the delight of the home support and organisers.

In Liechtenstein two years ago, Malta showed great progress and obtained the best ever GSSE record outside our shores (29 medals, eight of which were gold).

However, this result in Luxembourg was the worst since 1995.

Apart from a couple of individual efforts, most of the objectives were not reached here and that will send the Maltese Olympic Committee and its member associations back to the drawing board to come up with an improved solution ahead of the next Games in Iceland in two years’ time.

Newly-elected MOC Director of Sport Ivan Balzan reckons there is still room for optimism despite the poor show.

“I must admit that the result overall was below our expectations,” he said.

“Our projections were to win at least four gold medals here but I cannot fault the athletes really as all of them gave their 100 per cent.

“In all, we had 26 medals, only three short of the previous Games but we all know that in some sport we could have done better.

“Now we must return home and analyse our performances thoroughly. We cannot start thinking about the next Games until we find what really went wrong here and mistakes are corrected.”

In track and field events much of our gold medal hopes rested on the relays.

The women’s 4x100m quartet of Rebecca Camilleri, Robyn Zammit, Nicole Gatt and Diane Borg were looking to retain the title won in Schaan in 2011.

However, a faulty interchange between Camilleri and Zammit proved fatal and our quartet got disqualified.

Cyprus took gold when dashing home first in 46.02 seconds.

The men’s 4x100m was characterised by a chaos to declare the medal winners.

Luke Bezzina, Rachid Chouhal, Steve Camilleri and Andy Grech crossed the finish line third in 41.91 seconds.

However, second-placed Iceland were scratched for an infringement, lifting the Maltese to the silver medal position.

An hour after the ceremony was over, it emerged that Iceland had lodged a protest which was upheld thus demoting our team back to third place but with the silver medals still in their bags.

There was also controversy in the 4x400m relay as Francesca Borg, Nicole Gatt, Janet Richard and Lara Scerri crossed the finish line fourth with a time of three minutes 54.97 seconds.

However, their position was elevated to third after Cyprus were disqualified. Iceland took gold in three minutes 40.97 seconds.

Meanwhile, there was a pleasant surprise in the women’s triple jump as Rebecca Saré grabbed a surprise silver medal.

The 23-year-old matched her own personal best of 12.08 metres to finish behind Eleftheira Christofi, of Cyprus, who took gold with an effort of 13.20 metres.

Monaco’s Malory Malgherini was third with 11.40m.

“It’s an amazing feeling to have won a silver medal, I mean I wasn’t expecting this,” Saré said.

“I wanted to give my all and I’m proud to have done that. This result fills me with confidence to continue to improve. I was still far from the winning girl but as I said I will work harder to try and bridge the gap next time.”

The country had another athlete on the podium in triple jump yesterday as Andy Grech collected his first ever individual GSSE after placing third in the men’s final.

Grech set a new national record as he beat the 15-metre barrier for the first time in his career after producing a leap of 15.05 metres.

Grech’s effort was 31cm better off than his own previous best of 14.74m.

Panagiotis Volou, of Cyprus, took gold with 15.93m and his team-mate Zacharias Arnos was second with a leap of 15.53m.

In long distance races, Giselle Camilleri collected her second bronze medal of the Games after placing third in the 5,000 metres final.

Camilleri clocked 17 minutes 39.44 seconds to finish behind Montenegro’s Sladana Perunovic (16:53.20) and Cyprus Elpida Christodoulidou (17.36.07).

Sprint setback

Malta remained without a medal in the individual short sprints after both Diane Borg and Steve Camilleri missed out on a top-three position in the 200m.

Borg, the defending champion, could only finish fourth this time after dashing home in 24.86 seconds.

Anna Papaioannou regained the title she lost in Liechtenstein two years ago after crossing the finish line first in 23.40 seconds.

For the Cypriot, this was her second gold medal here after the 100m title she won on Tuesday.

Iceland’s Hafdis Sigurdardottir was second in 23.82 seconds while Cyprus Dimitra Kyriakidou took the bronze medal in 24.37 seconds.

In the men’s 200m, Camilleri had to settle for fourth place in 22.47 seconds.

Iceland’s Ivar Jasonarson took gold in 21.88secs... just 0.01 faster than Cyprus’s Christos Chatziangelidis. Kriton Kyriakidis, of Cyprus, took bronze in 22.11 seconds.