Target shooters William Vella and Gian Luca Azzopardi Spiteri missed out on a place in the final of the 10 metres air rifle, at the Poligono di Tiro a Volo, in Serravalle, yesterday.
The result was particularly disappointing for Vella who was a bronze medallist for the country at the Iceland Games two years ago.
Yesterday, a poor start to the competition cost Vella dearly as modest scores in the opening two rounds left him with lots of work to do to push his way into a top eight position and a place in the final.
Vella finished with 591.7 points, just 2.8 short of eight-placed Michael Mattle, of Liechtenstein, who took the last final spot. Azzopardi Spiteri was 11th overall in the rankings with 571.8 points. Nemanja Obradovic, of Montenegro, topped the qualifying round with 606.4.
In table tennis, Victoria Lucenkova and Jessica Pace, fresh from their silver medal in the teams competition, failed to keep the momentum going at the GSSE as they failed to reach the semi-finals of the doubles yesterday.
Drawn in Group B, the Malta duo lost all their three matches against San Marino (3-0), Monaco (3-0) and Montenegro (3-1) to finish bottom.
Archers eliminated
Daniel Schembri and Patrick Gregory Zammit were both eliminated in the Last 16 of the archery compound.
In the last 32, Schembri had the better of Monaco’s Xavier Kemp 133-130 but was then edged out by Luxembourg’s Timo Bega 137-136.
Zammit Gregory had eased past Francis Picaud, of Monaco, (133-119) but was then denied a place in the quarter-finals by Giles Seywert, of Luxembourg, 145-134.
In volleyball, the women’s national team suffered a 3-0 defeat to Iceland.
Iceland held the edge throughout the three sets – 25-20, 25-22, 25-20.
Meanwhile, the men’s beachvolley pair of Emanuel Raffa and Robert Balzan were left facing an anxious wait to see if they will advance to the semi-finals.
Yesterday, they chalked up their second win (vs Iceland 2-0 – 21-12, 21-10) to finish joint-second along Cyprus, Iceland and Monaco.
The organisers are now expected to apply a complicated formula on points scored by each team to decide who will join Liechtenstein in the semi-finals.
Gertrude Zarb and Dorianne Caruana Bonnici saw their chances of a bronze medal suffer a decisive blow yesterday after a 2-0 upset to Monaco.
The Monaco girls were too strong for the Maltese, winning the sets 21-5 and 21-10 to hand Zarb and Caruana Bonnici their second defeat in the competition from four matches.