Teeming with school children, the Matthew Micallef St John Athletic Stadium and Marsa grounds earlier this month witnessed the participation of over 500 athletes hailing from most of the state, private and church institutions on the islands, in the annual cross country events for schools.

An overall participation of 34 schools, the majority fielding teams, ensured a wide distribution of the prizes, with San Andrea, being a co-educational school, participating in all six cate-gories and managing three team podiums.

These were a second spot for the Girls’ Primary team, another second in the Boys’ Senior category plus their coming out top in the Senior Girls’ category.

Various other schools finished with two team awards, with St Edward’s and De La Salle colleges, with just boys in their ranks, joining San Anton and the Mellieħa Primary.

The Mellieħa school, improving substantially over their participation last year, won the Girls’ Primary top prize and had their boys finishing third.

This year, too, witnessed school children from the sister island taking part in the races.

Qala Primary and the Victoria Secondary will undoubtedly be back next year should one bank on the enthusiasm of the young athletes and their minders.

Looking back on the competition, the closest tussle proved to be that in the junior boys’ category, in which the traditional strong outfits of St Edward’s and that of St Aloysius College, besides the ones of De La Salle, produced a close battle.

St Edward’s finished a mere point ahead of St Aloysius with the Brothers’ team from Cottonera just six points further back.

De La Salle had their best result in the Primary race, the team in-curring a mere 16 penalty points with the boys counting for the result ranked among the top six.

Similarly, the junior girls from the National School for Sport also did well, their foursome finishing within the first seven, penalised only 17 points.

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