The showcase for Maltese athletics, the National Championships, held over two days earlier this month, provided a good measure of competition with keen tussles witnessed especially in the sprinting events.
However, these were not the only events that caught the eye, as other fine performances were registered in the jumps and in mid-distance encounters.
The performances must have been satisfactory to the Maltese Olympic Committee as well, confirming not only their beliefs in the prowess of those already listed to compete in the Liechtenstein Games but also enabling the selectors to broaden somewhat the choice of athletes.
The 100m, the event most contested, reaffirmed the excellent form currently enjoyed by Diane Borg.
Powerful and unbeaten this year, the 20-year-old sped to the tape in 11.97 seconds, only four-hundredths of a second away from the national record.
She produced a repeat performance the following day when in the 200m she registered a hand-timed 24.8 seconds, on both occasions winning by a hefty margin.
The male sprints saw Rachid Chouhal crowned as the fastest Maltese this season thus far, when he clocked 10.97, with Owen Camilleri proving to be the best man over 200m with his hand-timed 22.1s.
The one-lap sprint was nonetheless exciting, Karl Farrugia finishing just over the 50-second mark.
Running an exhibition race, youth category athlete Nicole Gatt covered the 400m in a remarkable time of 57.45 seconds to claim a place in the GSSE team.
Francesca Xuereb and Celine Pace were also under one minute at this event.
While no new national marks were registered, two championships records marked both days.
The first went to Alessandra Pace in the triple jump when she cleared 12.12m. That of Day Two belonged to high jumper Jeremy Borg.
He equalled both the junior national record and the championship record with his conquest of the bar at 1.85 metres.
Back on the track, in the 800m, Mark Herrera recorded a fine time of 1:56.80 and in the 1,500m Lisa Marie Bezzina clocked 4:45.72.
At the longer distance events, it was Jonathan Balzan who claimed the 10,000 metres while Jason Martin won the 5,000 metres.
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Diane Borg smashed the 200m women’s national record at a special event within the National Championships for the Youth and Cadet categories held at Marsa yesterday.
Running with a following wind of 1.2 metres per second, Borg notched off 0.19 of a second from the five-year old record established by Charlene Attard in 2006 to set the new mark at 24.33 seconds.