Andrew Chetcuti entered the history books of Maltese sport yesterday after winning the country’s first-ever medal in men’s swimming at the GSSE when placing second in the 100m freestyle.

There were other notable performances from the Maltese swimmers at the Muhleholz pool as Andrea Agius and Mark Sammut set new national records on a positive day for the Aquatic Sports Association.

However, the most remarkable feat was that of Chetcuti who set two national records on his way to claiming a silver.

In the morning heats, he had already sent a clear warning when clocking the fastest time of 52.00... 0.25 of a second faster than his previous national record best of 52.25, achieved in Eindhoven earlier this year.

Chetcuti kept up the momentum in the afternoon when he completed the two-lap race in an even faster time, 51.98, to finish only behind gold medal winner Alexandre Bakhtiarov, of Cyprus. The winner’s time was 51.52.

“This was an unexpected result for me,” Chetcuti said.

“I never thought I would be challenging for a medal here, let alone silver.

“However, when I turned for the final 50 metres in a top-three position I was determined not to let this chance pass by and gave my all.”

The young Edward Caruana Dingli was the other swimmer in the 100m event and he placed 10th overall with a time of 55.22 seconds.

Agius caught the eye in the 200 metres IM when he broke the three-year-old national mark of Ryan Gambin in 2:14.46... almost two seconds quicker than the previous best of 2:16.40.

Agius was again inside the old mark in the final, 2:15.58, but was unable to classify among the medal winners.

Sammut established a new national mark in the 200 backstroke twice yesterday.

In the heats he clocked 2.13.47 to better his previous best of 2:13.54 and swam faster in the final when finishing sixth in 2:13.35.

In other events, Nicky Muscat placed fourth in the 200 back in 2:26.52 and Davina Mangion sixth in the 200 fly in 2:31.20. In another men’s race, Neil Agius was fifth in the 200 fly in 2:15.11.

National coach Andy Colbourn was not completely surprised by Chetcuti’s superb swim.

“Andrew has a lot of talent and we knew he had a potential to go far in that race,” Colbourn said.

“Now, we hope the medal and new records will spur the team to even bigger achievements this week.”