Team Malta returned from the 2017 Games of the Small States of Europe in San Marino with 29 medals: four gold, nine silver and sixteen bronze. Eighty-eight athletes competed in all twelve disciplines on the programme, with Archery, Boules and Cycling replacing Golf and Gymnastics.
Flag bearer Charlotte Wingfield led the way on the track. She won the 100m in 11.63, retaining the title she won in Iceland two years earlier, then took the 200m in a new national record of 23.78. She also ran on the 4 x 100m relay team with Rachel Fitz, Annalise Vassallo and Sarah Busuttil, which won silver in 46.31. Rebecca Sare added her second bronze of the Games in the triple jump, just two centimetres short of silver.
The women’s basketball team went through the tournament unbeaten, coming back from ten points down to beat Luxembourg 52-50 for gold. In shooting, young Gianluca Chetcuti won gold in Double Trap, veteran Frans Pace took silver in Trap after a nail-biting final against home shooter Manuel Mancini, and Bozhidar Dimitrov won bronze in Skeet, making it three medals from three shooting events.
The cyclists gave Malta its first medals of the Games, with silver for the women’s team and bronze for the men’s. David and Stefan Farrugia won silver in the Raffa doubles, Victoria Luchenkova and Jessica Pace took silver in the table tennis team event, and Mikhail Umnov won silver in the 200m butterfly. In tennis, 14-year-old Francesca Curmi, the youngest member of the contingent, won bronze in the singles and silver in the doubles with Elaine Genovese, who also took bronze in the singles and mixed doubles. Mya Azzopardi broke a long-standing national record in the 200m medley.
In August the Maltese Olympic Committee honoured the medal winners at an awards evening attended by Parliamentary Secretary for Youth, Sport and Voluntary Organisations Dr Clifton Grima. The Chef de Mission was William Beck.
