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maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 4 JUNE 2014 Sport 22 THE Malta National Champion- ships were held this weekend at the Matthew Micallef St John in Marsa. The first day saw the sprinters pro- duce some excellent results, with 2 time Sports Women of the Year, Di- ane Borg (La Salle AC) leaving her mark in the 100m with an excellent 12.06sec. Her male counterpart, Ste- ve Camilleri won the event in a cred- ible 10.80sec. In the Triple Jumper Ian Grech registered a good jump of 14.12m. On Sunday, the sprinters and jump- ers again took centre stage. Diane Borg again won the 200m with a time of 24.89sec with Kevin Moore registering an excellent technical result covering the same distance in 21.28sec and breaking the long standing Championships record of 21.52sec held by veteran sprinter Mario Bonello. Rebecca Camilleri was next up registering some out- standing leaps in the Long Jump and breaking her own National record of 6.31m twice, first with a jump of 6.32m and then with 6.41m. It seems more is in store for this extraordi- nary athlete who has now achieved the qualifying standard for the Com- monwealth Games to be held later on this Summer in Glasgow. The weekend was then given one further highlight with the women's 4x100m relay team. . Having had to run without the services of Rachel Fitz, Francesca Borg and Janet Rich- ards due to unfortunate injuries, a re-invented team made up of Rebecca Camilleri, Diane Borg, Rebecca Sare and Annalise Vassallo ran the dis- tance in 46.78sec also obtaining the qualifying standard for the Com- monwealth Games. The group of sprinters showed what a committed team of athletes could achieve. Download the MaltaToday App now WEIGHTLIFTING ATHLETICS WATERPOLO Young athletes shine at Malta Open Weightlifting Tournament THE Malta Weightlifting Asso- ciation has organized a successful Malta Open Tournament on Sun- day, June 1st which included the national team of Scotland apart from the local athletes. The first of the four competi- tions saw a number of cadets from the Under-13s performing, with the boy's category winner being Rylee Borg followed by Shardon Cassar. The girl 's section saw Alexia Guiga gain first place fol- lowed by Amy Victoria Zammit. Being of such a young age, their performance is not assessed solely on the weight lifted, but also on the quality of technique and con- sistency in repetitively successful attempts. In the Youth 's category, the Un- der-15s and Under-17s saw a strong performance by a good number of athletes: Kieran Mifsud took the helm as overall winner with 248 points followed by Owen Bugeja with 200.59 and Malcolm Camill- eri trailing behind by the narrow- est of margins, with 200.46 points. Fourth came Kirstin Coleiro with 167. It is worth mentioning that this category in particular includ- ed many new comers and showed good levels of improvement among the more experienced athletes, making this a great step for the fu- ture of Maltese Weightlifting. 14 year old Kieran Mifsud 's perform- ance is worth a mention as this young athlete not only won the Junior's category, but also totaled 214 kilos, breaking seven national records in the under-94kg catego- ry Under-17 and a further three in the Junior's category under-20. This sets Kieran up the be the new star of Maltese Weightlifting. The Juniors category also saw students from MCAST Paola, coached by Matthew Muscat Inglott, partici- pate for the first time. Following the Juniors, the Female category took to the podium, with Nicole Gatt being the most successful of the Maltese athletes - although not one of her better competi- tions, she still secured the overall win with 179 points. New partici- pants such as Hayley Mizzi also left their mark, displaying good and improved technique, with Sa- rah Grixti also showing that she is a promising athlete, attempting to break national records but stop- ping just short. This was the first category to include lifters from the Scotland team, with Gorgie Black gaining an impressive 229 points followed by Sophie Smyth 's 202 points. In the final Men's Senior Cat- egory, the best local athlete was Noel Coleiro, who gained 278 points with a total of 240 kilos followed by Ryan Agius with 265 points and Martin Pisani with 254. These two athletes are very promising showing substantial progress from competition to another, also good to mention that Kieran Mifsud managed to seal fourth position even in this category. Rodmar Pulis the high- est ranked athlete and close to the MQS for the commonwealth failed his last chance to qualif y by missing the total. The Scottish athlete Peter Kirk- bride was at his best where he gave a spectacle for all of those present with the total of 327 kg. The Scot- tish national team composed of six athletes and three officials will remain in Malta in the com- ing days for a training camp with Maltese athletes. The team is in last preparation for the Common- wealth games to be held in their native Glasgow. Ryan Agius The Malta National Championships Swimming and Waterpolo School 2014 AFTER the successful initiative taken these last two years by the club, the committee of Otters ASC, is once again organizing lessons in Swimming and Waterpolo, for chil- dren in Gozo. These lessons will start on the 8th of July and will run throughout the months of July and August. BMIT, Malta's leading Data Cen- tre, Cloud and Managed Services Provider is, for the second year running, sponsoring this Swim- ming and Waterpolo School organ- ized by Otters Aquatic Sports Club in Marsalforn Bay, Gozo. Under the guidance of Head Coach, Mr Alfred Cachia, the School has blos- somed and in Summer 2013 it had close to 100 participants. The main targets of this School are to promote and introduce swimming and waterpolo to chil- dren from the age of six upwards. With BMIT's backing, Otters ASC have recruited a number of quali- fied coaches which have given the School a more professional set-up. On Saturday 17th May, a Regis- tration Day was held at the Arkadia Shopping Mall in Victoria Gozo (see attached photo/s) and this attracted a record number of new applicants, therefore promising a great sum- mer of activities in Marsalforn. All those interested may still download an application from the Club's web- site www.ottersasc.com