There was an air of euphoria at the Maltese Olympic Committee offices at Tal-Qroqq today as the local governing body of elite sport celebrated its best-ever performance in an overseas GSSE after returning home with a tally of 29 medals – eight gold, 12 silver and nine bronze.

Malta’s fourth-place finish in the overall medal standings at the end of the 2011 LieGames was the country’s second best-ever performance in a GSSE and eclipsed the previous best set in Andorra 2005 when that year the team returned home with seven gold, 13 silver and eight bronze.

Mark Cutajar, the MOC Director of Sport, described Team Malta’s performance in Liechtenstein as outstanding and it gave the right response to all those who doubted the skills of the Maltese athletes.

“I have been waiting this press conference for two years,” Cutajar told a news conference.

“After Cyprus 2009 I received a lot of criticism and I was also labelled incompetent for the job. At the time, I had two options, either to quit or remain quiet and work hard to put Maltese sport back on its feet. I chose the second option and two years on we are here celebrated Malta’s best performance in a GSSE.

“Seventy-four per cent of the athletes in the contingent returned home with a medal, while 92 per cent of the team placed in the top four. We managed 16 national records plus a spate

“The merit of this success should be shared by all athletes, officials and federations who worked relentlessly in the past 24 months. The important thing now is that as from tomorrow we start working on our next objectives.”