The Malta Weightlifting Association organised their annual event where they honour the athletes for their achievement in 2016. The presentation kicked off by awarding athletes with their achievements for the National Championships were at total of 35 titles were given. The presenters of these awards included the Malta Olympic Committee President Mr. Julian Pace Bonello and General Secretary Mr. Joseph Cassar.
Numerous awards were given to a number of athletes that had an impressive performance in 2016. Mr Alfred Elull Mercer Honorary President of the association presented the awards. Yazmin Zammit Stevens was the star of the day, winning the Master level Award with 76.23%, the Achievement award with 37 national records and the most improvement Award with 62.26 points. She also won the National Championships award in the 69kg category. Kieran Mifsud won the Master level athlete award with 77.18%. Vlad Baldacchino won the most improved new comer award with 87.17 points. Shelby Vassallo won the most improvement Award while Rylee Borg won the most committed athlete award. A recognition award was also given to Kyle Micallef for being the first Maltese athlete to participate in weightlifting in the Olympic Games.
President of the association, Mr. Jesmond Caruana, gave some interesting statistics to show how the local weightlifting is always getting stronger. He mentioned how, in 2016, a total of 115 new national records were broken, 40 of which were broken in international events. 19 athletes from the Maltese weightlifting team participated in 16 international events, while national coaches and officials participated in a total of 16 international representations. Some athletes even represented Malta more than once each, with a selection participating 5 and even 6 times internationally. This increases our representation in these competitions to a total of 39 appearances. A respectable amount of medals were won in the international scene by our local athletes
Mr. Caruana ended his short speech by emphasising that the entire association will continue their hard work and together build for a stronger and even more successful 2017.