Maltese athletes enjoyed another fruitful day at the FISEC Games yesterday after they added another 11 medals to their overall tally at the end of the third day of competition.
At the National Pool, there were eight more medals for the Maltese swimmers yesterday although the harvest was not as abundant as it had been on the first day when our boys and girls grabbed 11 medals.
However, the eight-medal return was very satisfactory for coach Gail Rizzo considering the extraordinary haul on the opening day. In fact Rizzo said that these games so far have been the best ever for the Maltese swimmers.
Again, the golden girl of Maltese swimming, Talisa Pace, was our outstanding female when winning individual gold and silver medals in the 100 and 400 free respectively. In the former event she clocked 1:01.11 to improve here previous Age-Group C record she set in the morning by 0.11 seconds. She had won the gold in the 200 free on Thursday.
In the boys' events, the golden honours went to Robert Micallef when he took gold in the 200 fly in 2:22.57, a rare first for the Maltese male swimmers.
The other outstanding boy was Mark Sammut who added another individual bronze to the two he won the previous day when he covered the 200 back in 2:21.06, an improvement of 0.60 seconds on the previous best in Group C set by Christian Gialanze 17 years ago.
The other record for Sammut was in the 50 back Group C, a distance covered in 30.67 to better his own mark of 31.13.
Melinda Sue Micallef also did extremely well when winning two bronze medals in the 200 IM and 100 breast. Nicky Muscat underlined her progress with a bronze in the 50 back which she did in 32.80 to improve her age group C record set in the morning, a time which erased the previous best of Christine Cachia set 11 years ago.
In the penultimate event, the girls 4x100 medley team of Muscat, Micallef, Gianella Gauci and Pace collected the bronze, a medal which just eluded the boys' medley team on the same distance in the subsequent race.
In the track and field events, held at the Marsa sports ground, the Maltese participants collected three silver medals.
Andrew Cassar Torreggiani placed second in the triple jump final after producing a leap of 13.83 metres.
Martina Xuereb won a silver in the 100 metres when she dashed home in 12.33 seconds.
The other podium finish for Malta at Marsa yesterday came from Monalisa Camilleri who finished second in the 3,000m with a time of 10:51.44.
In football, Malta yesterday chalked up its first win after edging Holland 4-3 in a thrilling match at the Centenary Stadium.
Jean Paul Farrugia notched a brace for the team coached by Oliver Spiteri with the other goals coming from Clyde Borg and Steve Pisani.
Today, Malta, who drew their opening two matches against Spain (0-0) and England (1-1), play against Flanders at 12.15 p.m.
The boys' basketball team yesterday beat Italy 'A' 67-51 for their third successive group win. Samuel Deguara was again Malta's leading scorer with 32 points. In the handball competitions for boys Malta lost to Portugal 32-18.
There was a similar setback in the girls' volleyball tournament as Malta lost to Holland 3-0.