Kathryn Cassar was a whisker away from reaching the women’s trap final at the Commonwealth Games yesterday after bowing out in a five-way shoot-off but Rebecca Madyson failed to reproduce the same kind of form that saw her win silver in Melbourne 2006 as she finished outside the top 10.
Malta’s hopes of medal success in New Delhi were hinging mostly on Madyson following William Chetcuti’s forfeit in Double Trap earlier in the week. However, it was Cassar who caught the eye as the 24-year-old put behind her the poor showing in the pairs competition to fire 24, 21 and 23 and finish with 68 from 75 clays.
That score left Australia-based Cassar tied with five other shooters in fourth place and a shoot-off was required to determine the last three entries for the barrage along with England’s Anita North (71), New Zealand’s Natalie Rooney (70) and India’s Shreyasi Singh (70).
Unfortunately, Cassar was eliminated in the second round of the shoot-off along with Abbey Burton, of England, while Scotland’s Shona Marshall, Gaby Ahrens, of Namibia, and Nadine Stanton, of New Zealand booked a place in the barrage.
Incidentally, both Marshall and Ahrens went on to win a medal as the former finished second, two clays behind gold medallist North (93) while Ahrens placed third on 88.
For Madyson, a low-scoring first round of 20 left her with too much work to do and despite improving to 23 and 22 in her next two rounds she still finished a distant 12th with 65. In all, 21 female shooters took part in the competition.
In the two-day men’s Trap shoot, the fight for a place in the barrage looks to be a fierce one as at the end of Day One, the top 19 are separated by a mere five clays with Malta duo Jason John Aquilina and Nazzareno Attard still in contention for a top-six finish.
Incredibly, South Africa’s Martin Davis hit three successive straights to top the provisional classification with a perfect score of 75. He is lying ahead of Australia’s Adam Vella, India’s Mansher Singh and England’s Aaron Heading who all hit 74.
Aquilina had rounds of 24, 23 and 23 to classify 15th and Attard compiled scores of 24, 24 and 22 to place 19th.
The last two qualifying rounds will be held this morning with the top six proceeding to the final.
Meanwhile, squash players Bradley Hindle Deguara and Michael Fiteni are through to the last 16 of the doubles competition.
Yesterday, they beat Christian Bailey and Mal Rundell, of Norfolk Island, 11-3, 11-4 in 25 minutes.
Victory meant qualification for the Malta representatives from Pool Three with one match to spare. Today, they play England (Peter Barker and Darryl Selby) with the winner securing top spot in the group.
Long jump upset
In track and field, Rebecca Camilleri did not progress to the long jump final after failing to breach the six-metre barrier in the qualifying round at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Delhi.
Camilleri leapt 5.95 metres on her first jump but failed to improve in her next two attempts to finish 13th from 20 entries. Earlier this year, Camilleri set a new national mark of 6.22.
Yesterday, she finished just seven centimetres away from the mark of Trinidad’s Ayanna Alexander who took the 12th and final spot for today’s final.
In lawn bowls, the men’s pairs and triples teams did not make the final stages of their respective competition despite winning their final group matches yesterday.
Joe Saragozza, Leonard Callus and Michael Debono beat the Niue Island trio 2-0 (12-2, 10-7) to finish 10th from 11 teams in Pool A with four points.
South Africa, Australia and Wales were the three teams to progress from this section.
Brendan Aquilina and Francis Vella finished with a flourish in Pool B when they beat hosts India 2-0 (9-4, 11-6) and then had the better of England 2-0 (7-5, 14-3).
However, the Malta pair still finished outside the top three as they placed fifth from 12 teams with 12 points.
Malaysia, Jersey and England were the nations that qualified.
Meanwhile, Carmela Spiteri yesterday won her opening match against Rachel Macdonald, of Jersey, 3-2 after a tie break (18-0, 5-6).
Today, she plays three matches in singles against Siti Zalina Ahmad (Malaysia), Claire Johnston (Scotland) and Lebogang Mascarenhas (Botswana).
In men’s singles, Shaun Parnis lost to New Zealand’s Ali Forsyth 2-0 (5-9, 2-11) and then went down to England’s Sam Tolchard 1.5-0.5 (4-12, 9-9). Today, he faces Monokura Pita, of Cook Islands.
One other Maltese athlete making his debut in the Delhi Games today will be Abraham Vassallo. The Malta wrestling champion takes on Gerald Meyer (South Africa) in a bout from the 84kgs category.