The Malta Amateur Athletic Association has just recorded its best ever showing in the history of the IAAF World Championships in the ninth edition currently being held in France.
The quality of the performances of Tanya Blake and Darren Gilford, the only two Maltese athletes in Paris, clearly underlines the growing standard of local athletics.
In the women's 800m, Tanya Blake kept contact with the leaders throughout the race knowing that a place among the first three would win her an automatic qualifying spot for the semi-final.
Up to the very end she remained in contention, but in the final straight she was outgunned by three athletes, including Austrian Steffi Graf, one of the very big names in world 800m running.
As happens in a number of middle distance races in championship events, Blake's heat developed into a tactical affair with none of the athletes wishing to take the lead. At the bell, they went through in a slow time of 63 seconds meaning that none of the athletes outside the first three would manage to qualify as one of the fastest losers.
In view of the slow first lap, it would be unfair to draw comparisons between Blake's finishing time of 2:04.61 and her personal best of 1:59.56.
On the world stage, her fourth place in the heat is to be considered as a highly creditable performance and even if with more luck she could possibly have made it to the semi-final, her performance outstrips that of any Maltese athlete in any previous World Championships.
Our other participant in Paris was Darren Gilford in the men's 100m.
The eyes of the Maltese aficionados watching the event on television must have been all agog when up to the 50m mark, Gilford appeared to be running at a par with stars such as Mark-Lewis Francis and Obadele Thompson.
Although Gilford was unable to maintain his momentum till the very end, he finished fifth in his heat.
This is the best ever placing by a Maltese male athlete in the World Championships and Gilford's time of 10.60, which was close to his national record of 10.55, saw him placing 48th out of a total of 74 starters in the 100m sprint.
The results achieved give the MAAA good reason to be satisfied with the performances of its athletes.