The MAAA national squad at school level will be one of 13 countries represented at the two-day 10th European Kids Athletics Games in Brno, Czech Republic, starting on Tuesday.

This annual event, now attracting over 1,300 boys and girls, has proved to be an excellent competition in which Athletics Malta grooms its future representatives at much higher levels.

The strongest – and more numerous – opposition will naturally be from the host country and neighbouring Slovakia, that formed part of the same country some years back.

However, a Northern England team, other teams from the Balkans, central Europe, Spain and Italy, along with Latvia, will also look towards making their mark on results this week.

With local clubs and coaches also recognising the opportunity the Euro Kids Games provide, these past editions have seen the MAAA field practically the very best athletes – barring injuries – which local track and field sport has to offer at this level.

At this point it would be well worth mentioning that criteria for selection always follows a norm in which the four major categories in the sport, that of sprint, middle distance, jumps and throws, are equally represented... as is the other criteria of balancing the genders, where usually the 14-athlete target is evenly distributed.

For this year the MAAA’s choice has fallen on sprinters Kayley Bondin, Meave Phillips, Carla Scicluna, Nasim Dardouri and Gary Ghirxi.

The middle distance athletes are Nicole Sciberras, Karl Attard and Jean Claude Randon while Maria Ghigo and Liam McKay will be performing at the jumps.

Throwers Martina Mamo and Luca Martini make up the elder athletes.

At the youngest level will be Rachela Pace and Sean Spiteri, both of whom will be taking part in those events at which they were most notable in the season, the sprints and jumps, the 800m and the ball throw.

In fact, nearly all MAAA athletes will be taking part in more than one event, be it sprints at different distances, hurdles, horizontal and vertical jumps and, to cap it all, in the relays.

In charge of the Maltese squad will be MAAA official Ingrid Cristiano and technical coach Angie Mangion.

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