Malta won its first ever medal in the Commonwealth Youth Games yesterday when Ryan Bugeja took silver in the Trap competition in Pune, India.

Bugeja had started the day on top of the leaderboard after hitting 68 from 75 clays following the opening three rounds of the competition held on Monday.

In yesterday’s remaining two rounds before the cut to the final, Bugeja hit two identical scores of 21 to qualify for the barrage in second place with a total of 110 points.

India’s Kyanan Derius Chenai led the way on 111 with Australian Michael McNabb and Britain’s Thomas Ward sharing third place on 106.

In the final, Bugeja and Chenai both hit 17 from 25 clays with the home shooter securing gold with a total of 128, one better off than the young Maltese shooter. The bronze medal went to McNabb who finished on 125.

In track and field, Martina and Francesca Xuereb and Michael Fraser all qualified to the semi-finals of the 400 metres.

In the girls’ event, Martina won her first-round heat in 56.96 seconds as her sister Francesca only just made it after placing sixth in the third heat in 58.17.

In the afternoon’s semi-final Martina went on to book a place in today’s final when she placed third in the first semi-final in 56.40. Francesca could only finish seventh in 57.95 in the other semi-final.

In the men’s 400m, Fraser, competing in the fourth heat, cruised to fourth spot in 50.93 seconds to book his place in the next round. However, he found the going tough in the semi-final and had to settle for eighth place in the heat when clocking 50.34 seconds.

The other Maltese runner in action yesterday was Marija Sciberras. She missed out on a place in the 100 metres hurdles semi-finals when finishing fifth in her heat in 15.80 seconds.

Later on in the day, the girls’ 4x100 team advanced to today’s final but the boys quartet were eliminated.