The fourth U-18 Mediterranean Championship was hosted recently by the Fencing Association of Siracusa.
Twelve countries took part. These were: Malta, Italy, Tunis, France, Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Egypt, Turkey, Spain, Monaco and Serbia.
The Maltese fencers' participation was funded by the MIA Youth Sport Development Policy, a joint initiative by the Kunsill Malti ghall-Isport and the Malta International Airport plc.
The Maltese contingent consisted of 11 fencers in Foil and Epee as none were registered for the Sabre and Team events.
A statement said the combined overall performance of 134 hits out of a possible 390, or just over one in three was very respectable. There was a marked improvement over last year's championship which was held in Tunis.
The Maltese delegation also included fencing association president Juan Formosa and secretary general Kenneth Spiteri.
Between them, Marie-Jo Scicluna, Darryl Pisani and Paul Borg won five of their bouts.
The best performance for the Maltese girls was that of Scicluna. Apart from beating her opponent from Croatia 5-3, she lost to the fencer from Greece by the narrowest of margins (5-4). Her performance in the KO was also quite satisfactory as she managed to hit her opponent from Tunis nine times.
Scicluna's overall average of 60% or three hits in five is considered quite promising. She was classified 13th out of 17.
Like Scicluna, Jessica Vella had hits against all her opponents. In the KO phase Vella scored 12 hits against her Spanish rival. At an average of 55%, she was second in the Maltese overall placing list.
The performances of Nadine Caruana and Sarah Grech in Epee lacked consistency.
Grech lost to Brenda Biasco, of Italy, 5-4 in the group stage. This was an encouraging result considering that Biasco eventually advanced to the final. Caruana hit her Turkish opponent seven times in the KO phase.
At 13 years, Ruth Micallef was the youngest fencer in the group. Still, the experience will stand her in good stead. In Sicily, she managed a modest average of 10%.
Pisani had two victories from five bouts against fencers from Monaco (5-2) and Greece (5-4). The only bout in which Pisani failed to register a hit was against Italian D'Andrassi, the top performer in the class.
Pisani was 14th out of the 22 taking part in Epee. He averaged 56% hits in the group stage and 45% overall, placing him third among his fellow Maltese fencers.
In Foil, Borg also had two victories in his group after wins over fencers from Greece (5-4) and Croatia (5-3).
In the remaining four bouts, however, Borg could only muster two hits lowering his average to 40%. A meagre two hits in the KO stage saw his overall average sliding down to 31%.
Following the group stage, Borg placed 17th out of 20.
Andre Zahra had a total of nine hits from a possible 40 giving him an overall average of 23%.
The tension on Corin Sammut's and Kurt Mifsud's faces was reflected in their performance in the group for they only managed five hits between them. Sammut improved in the KO stage, gaining 11 hits out of 15.