Meet Malta’s five Olympic hopefuls

Malta will be represented by five athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics that get underway on Friday.

The athletes selected by the Maltese Olympic Committee are sprinter Beppe Grillo, judoka Katryna Esposito, shooter Gianluca Chetcuti and swimmers Sasha Gatt and Kyle Micallef.

Below is a small biography of Team Malta’s representatives, highlighting their achievements so far throughout their careers.

Name: Beppe Grillo

Discipline: ATHLETICS

Competition: 100m Preliminary round

Venue: Stade de France

Date: Saturday, August 3 at 10.45am

Beppe Grillo, 21, has been practicing athletics since he was 14 years old.

For the last three years he has dedicated himself to training at a semi-pro level which has resulted in him becoming one of Malta’s best sprinters in both the 100m and the 200m categories.

His competitive biography shows a list of several medals at the Championships for the Small States of Europe including a Silver Medal in the 100m, Bronze Medal in the 200m and gold medal in the Swedish Relay.

At the 2023 GSSE he walked away with gold medal in the 4x100m relay and bronze in the 100m event.

Grillo finished 4th at the U23 Mediterranean Games in Egypt in 2024. He currently ranks seventh in the 100m distance in the European Under 23 category.

At the Balkan Senior Championships in Izmir, Turkey he brought home a bronze medal whilst lowering a new 100m senior record from 10.49sec to 10.23sec.

In Izmir he also secured a bronze medal in the 4x100m.

Grillo is the current 100m National Champion (10.47) and 200m National Champion (21.35).

He was also part of the relay team setting the new record for the 4x100m with a time of 40.51 in July 2024.

Name: Katryna Esposito

Discipline: Judo

Competition: -48kg

Venue: Champ de Mars

Date: July 27, 10.00am

Katryna Esposito’s judo career started in 2019, when she participated in her first judo training camp, marking the beginning of her competitive journey in the sport.

Later that year, she competed in her first judo event as a junior, a pivotal experience that set the stage for her future endeavours.

Despite the interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Esposito gradually increased her participation in judo competitions.

Her persistence paid off in 2022 when she achieved her first significant result – a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games, in Birmingham.

In 2023, she secured two bronze medals at the African Judo Opens. Additionally, Katryna clinched a gold medal at the European Games of Small States held in Malta.

 In 2023, she was close to achieving quarter-final places at both the Antalya Grand Slam and the World Championships.

Also that year she faced a significant setback when she suffered a knee injury whilst winning gold at the GSSE 2023 in Malta.

 Following a period of recovery and rehabilitation, Esposito went on to take silver at the Algiers African Open.

In 2024 Katryna won gold at the Commonwealth Championships held in Malta.

Esposito is currently ranked number 55 on the world list.

Name: Gianluca Chetcuti

Discipline: Shooting

Competition: Trap.

Venue: Chateauroux Shooting Centre

Date: Monday, July 29, 10.00am; Tuesday, July 30, 10am

Gianluca Chetcuti started practising shooting in 2012.

A year later aged 15, he was training the Double Trap discipline, making his international debut in April 2014, at the Italian Nations Cup where he secured the bronze medal in the junior category.

In 2017, he competed at the ISSF World Cup in Larnaca, Cyprus, reaching the final and finished in fourth place.

That same year, he won the gold medal at the GSSE in San Marino and later earned a bronze medal at the European Championships in Baku.

In 2018, he briefly switched to Trap, making the national team, and participated in the ISSF World Cup held in Malta.

After this event, he returned to Double Trap and, in 2019, he clinched another gold medal at the Montenegro GSSE.

By 2020, he switched to trap and, by 2023, had become the first Maltese shooter to reach a final in an ISSF Trap World event and the first to contest a final in two different ISSF disciplines.

His achievements continued at the third European Games in Wroclaw in June 2023, where he set a new Maltese record with a qualifying score of 124/125, also a national and European Games record, finishing fifth out of eigth finalists.

Additionally, he equaled the Ħal Far shooting range record of 123/125 in a local competition, a record set in 1995.

In 2024 Gianluca finished in fourth overall at the ISSF Final Olympic Qualification Championships in Doha, Qatar.

He was the top scorer at the Malta International Grand Prix. Together with swimmer Sasha Gatt, he will be carrying the Maltese flag at the Opening Ceremony.

Name: Sasha Gatt

Discipline: Swimming

Competition: 1,500m freestyle heats.

Venue: Paris La Defense Arena.

Date: Tuesday, July 30, 11am

Sasha Gatt will be competing in her second Games, having previously participated in Tokyo in 2021 as one of the youngest athletes in the Maltese contingent.

Starting the sport at seven, Gatt won her first accolade at the Maltese National Championships a year later.

At thirteen, she achieved her first National Short Course Record in the 800m freestyle event at the Opera Swim Classics Short Course Meet in Germany in October 2018.

From then on, she continued breaking records and became a consistent presence at international events, including the FINA World Championships, FINA World Junior Championships, COJI Games, Games of the Small States of Europe, COMEN Mediterranean Swimming Cup, and the European Youth Olympic Festival in Azerbaijan, where she was Malta’s flag bearer.

In December 2020, at the Winter Olympic Qualifying Meet, she swam the 1500m freestyle, setting a new National and Age Group D Record and achieving an Olympic “B” qualifying time for Tokyo 2020.

In 2021, she qualified for the European Aquatic Championships and the European Junior Swimming Championships, becoming the first Maltese swimmer to reach the finals in the 1500m event.

Her results garnered enough FINA points to rank as Malta’s highest-ranked female swimmer, securing a Universality place through the IOC Tripartite programme for Paris 2024.

At the opening ceremony, she will carry the Malta flag alongside shooter Gianluca Chetcuti.

Name: Kyle Micallef

Discipline: Swimming.

Competition: 50m freestyle heats.

Venue: Paris La Defense Arena

Date: Thursday, August 1 – 11.00am

Kyle Micallef started swimming from a very young age, progressing into sprinting.

Micallef competed at National and State level in Australia where he was brought up before eventually moving to the United States to further his studies.

In Australia, Micallef established several Sunshine State Conference records, whilst in the US he achieved four National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship titles.

In 2023 he formed part of Team Malta at the 2023 Games of the Small States of Europe, where he won gold in the 50m freestyle and the 4x100m freestyle relay events.

Micallef won five events at the Maltese National Championships – the 50m, 100m freestyle events, the 50m and 100m butterfly and 50 backstroke events.

Micallef is a 22 time All-American and was named the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Team Member of the year for 2023-24.

Note: Athletes information was supplied by Maltese Olympic Committee