The Maltese gymnastics team competed in the artistic event at the Commonwealth Games, yesterday. Photo: Paul Zammit CutajarMaltese gymnasts Kirsty Caruana, Peppijna Dalli and Adreana Zammit were in action yesterday as the Commonwealth Games artistic women’s team events got underway at the SSE Hydro arena in Glasgow, Scotland.
Following Nathan Lee Xuereb’s upset in the double trap bronze medal match on Sunday, yesterday it was the turn of Brian Galea to try and lift Team Malta’s morale in the trap shoot at the Barry Buddon range.
At the end of Day One of competition, Galea looked well poised to challenge for a place in the semi-finals after finishing the first two rounds in seventh place.
In the gymnastics competition, England’s women, led by Olympians Becky Downie and Hannah Whelan, scored 85.390 after competing on the bars and vault to sit top of the standings ahead of Australia with 83.882 and Wales with 81.398 with Canada, Scotland and New Zealand further down the rankings.
English gymnast Ruby Harrold was second in the all-around standings with team-mate Claudia Fragapane fourth after the bars and vault as a brief appearance by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry in the afternoon appeared to provide inspiration for the home nations.
The team competitions continue today and also double as individual qualifications for the all-around and apparatus finals.
In the trap shoot, India marksman Mansher Singh hit two straights to go top of the provisional leaderboard.
Singh starts Day Two on 50 points, just one ahead of Australian Michael Diamond and Manavjit Sandhu, also of India, with Adam Vella (Australia) and Aaron Heading (England) following on 47 points in fourth and fifth places respectively.
Galea started the day with a high 24 but lowered his score to 22 in his next round for an overall 46.
The 40-year-old is currently ranked no.7 in the standings behind David Sipling.
England’s Sipling has the same score as the Maltese shooter, both four clays behind medal favourite Singh.
The trap competition, which reaches a peak with the medal matches this afternoon, is being contested by 36 shooters.