Malta came close to breaking its gold medal duck at the Luxembourg Games of the Small States of Europe yesterday but swimmer Andrew Chetcuti only succeeded in finishing second place in the 100m butterfly race despite a valiant effort at the Arena d’Coque.
Day Two of the competition came to a close with the country still rooted at the bottom of the classification with ten medals to show but none of them gold.
On Tuesday, Chetcuti had promised that he would try and improve the medal colour in his next event after a third place in the 100m freestyle and the 20-year-old was true to his word.
During the morning heats he again emerged as the fastest swimmer in the pool after completing the two lap-race in a personal best of 56.39 seconds... almost a full second faster than Iceland’s Daniel Hannes Palsson (57.36).
However, in the final Chetcuti also had to test his wits with those of defending champion Alexandre Bakhtiarov.
The Cypriot succeeded in retaining the title when touching home first in 55.12 seconds.
Chetcuti still had reason to be elated as he broke the 56-second barrier for the first time in his career when clocking 55.58... more than a half-a-second faster than his previous personal best set earlier this year. Palsson was third home in 57.14 seconds.
“I’m really happy with my performance, I wasn’t expecting to go this fast,” Chetcuti told The Times of Malta.
“I swam really well today and that was clearly mirrored in my time which is a new personal best, but, more importantly, I managed to improve on Tuesday’s result by winning a silver medal.
“These Games are really turning out to be very promising for me and now I want to remain on the medal trail when I take part in the 50 metres freestyle.”
Watching impatiently from the deck, Chetcuti’s coach Grant Kritzinger sounded satisfied with the achievements attained by his swimmer.
“Andrew is giving his all in these Games,” Kritzinger said.
“He is continuously showing massive progress and that was again reflected in the 100m butterfly race. Up to a few months ago his best time over this distance was 56.7 and now he has improved that by more than a second... amazing.
“With two events to go he has already two medals in the bag and if he can get a third by the end of the week I think it would be a fantastic feat for him.
“Andrew is a great talent and I’m sure that if he continues to show the same application in his training it will not be long before he can look at bigger events than this, perhaps even the next Commonwealth Games.”
Chetcuti will again be in action today when he takes part in the 50 metres freestyle heats.