The 2015 season kicked off in earnest last weekend with the first MAAA Challenge Meeting delivering some lively performances and a string of promising results.
Despite these still being early days, the likes of Bradley Mifsud, Luke Bezzina and Dorianne Micallef already seem to be hitting their stride.
The 100m dash featured a duel between the evergreen Rachid Chouhal and Bezzina who pipped the rest to the finish – clocking 11.16s into a headwind.
Sarah Mifsud, of Allcomers Aloysians, took the girls’ 100m race with a creditable 12.82 seconds.
Ylenia Pace also had a strong performance in the 200m, finishing in 26.36s for a personal best.
A couple of jumpers would also make their mark on proceedings.
Ian Grech decided to compete in the long jump and, probably, he was glad he did.
The Pembroke man took advantage of the favourable weather and managed an impressive, albeit wind-assisted, 6.92m jump following a powerful run-up.
Micallef scored twin victories in the high jump and triple jump – the latter performance particularly eye-catching at 11.68m.
However, the day ultimately belonged to young Mifsud, of Pembroke Athleta.
His best throw of 60.23m set a new national junior javelin record.
Mifsud’s continued success in the event augurs well with the GSSE and European Games on the slate for 2015.
Antonella Chouhal also had a very strong showing and her 38.42m hammer throw indicates she’s already in fine form.
A number of the usual suspects also had winning performances on the day.
A familiar duel occurred in the men’s 400m dash with Savio AC’s Matthew Croker coming out on top despite Neil Brimmer’s hard run to the finish.
Pembroke’s Mark Herrera won the 3,000m race with Dario Mangion coming home a strong second. Lisa-Marie Bezzina won her 3,000m race by a larger margin.
Amid the very encouraging results by most of the athletes on the day, the Challenge Meeting also attracted a sizeable crowd to the Marsa athletics stadium.
Perhaps, most encouraging was the number of cadets on show.
Most of them showed promise as this talented, young core of athletes handed in improved performances from last year even though the 2015 season is still in its infancy.