Special Olympics Gibraltar does Gibraltar proud in Berlin (part 2)

Continuing from last Saturdays initial reports on Special Olympics Gibraltar’s performance during the World Summer Games in Berlin, we bring you the rest of the daily reports provided by Special Olympics Gibraltar’s press officer Andrew Ramage.
Team Gibraltar once again collecting medals at a major international event and making Gibraltar proud.

Tuesday
Special Olympics Gibraltar struck gold on Tuesday at the Special Olympics World Summer games in Berlin with their first medals of the games. First was Marvin Zammit who came in second in his 800m final but was promoted to the gold medal position when the first runner home was disqualified.
Meanwhile in a very similar situation Gino Francis came second in his 200m final after refusing to let the third place runner pass him and fought to the end to keep hold of second position. However again the leader was disqualified after the race leading to Gino claiming the gold medal.
Gibraltar’s first Special Olympics cyclist, Francis Mauro, did really well in his 5km divisioning event in the morning, coming in first after a sprint in the last 200 metres and then went on in the afternoon to claim silver medal in the final of the 15km road race.
In the bocce event Dorian Zammit won two matches 6:4 and 5:2 and narrowly lost one 4:5 in the morning before going on to claim the silver medal in his bocce singles event. His fellow bocce athlete, Miguel Rubio, came 5th in his division.
Elsewhere on the track Mark dos Santos did so well in his 50m race that he broke his personal best but unfortunately exceeded the Special Olympic fair racing rules and was disqualified, receiving a participation ribbon.
The icing on the cake for Team Gibraltar was a 5-3 victory over SO Germany ‘A’ team in the futsal competition. The game was played at a good tempo for the Gibraltar men and they got the job done, leading 3-0 at half time. The German team pulled two goals back in the second half but SOG showed courage and determination to win 5-3 in the end with 2 goals from Jansen Gilbert, 2 goals from Jeremy Prescott and 1 from Giovanni Yeo.
In the golf Level 4, Julian de las Heras and Ivan Mannion Gomez completed their second 9-hole rounds with scores of 60 and 65 respectively. In the skills events Nicholas Payas improved on his score of 51 on the first day with a score of 54 while Charles Zammit scored 48, down on his first day score of 56 but leaving the pair very close on combined scores.
All in all a very productive and satisfying day for Team Gibraltar. Wednesday will start with the bowling doubles final featuring Shane Martinez and Patrick Slater at 9 am.

Thursday
Thursday was another eventful day at the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin, where the temperatures reached in excess of 30 degrees before a big thunderstorm on Thursday night.
In the cycling, athlete Francis Mauro completed the 25km in 46 min 56.27 sec. and claimed the bronze medal. Whilst fellow athlete Stephen Balban won silver in the 50m backstroke event in the pool. On the track Team Gibraltar athletes made various gains in their respective semi-finals and Daniela Vinent came in 5th place in the 50m final despite knocking a massive 6 seconds off her pb.
The golf event reached a climax on Thursday with the final day of competition. After 4 hard days in all levels, much prior training paid off for Nicholas Payas and Charles Zammit in their Level 1 event. Nicholas bettered his previous scores of 51, 54 and 53 by scoring a whopping 65 on the last day and claiming silver medal in his division. Charles went one better, having previously scored 56, 48 and 48, by coming from behind and scoring 66 on the last day and winning joint-gold in his division. In the Level 4 event the Gibraltar athletes were effected by late division changes which made their chances even harder and eventually finished with a creditable 5th place for Julian de las Heras, and an impressive 4th place for newcomer Ivan Mannion Gomez.

Friday
On Friday the heavens opened in Berlin where there was torrential rain for most of the day which disrupted the schedules of several of the Special Olympics World Summer Games events. The athletics events were postponed and eventually cancelled for the day as the track was waterlogged, as were the cycling events.
The equestrian events went ahead though the warm up area outside was very wet. It was the working trails event for the two Gibraltarian riders and they brought home the goods with Glen Wimbleton winning silver medal and JJ Buttigieg bronze in their respective, difficult 8 member divisions.
One sport which was not affected was bocce which is held inside the large Messe arena. It was the doubles event and the Gibraltar pair of Dorian Zammit and Miguel Rubio performed faultlessly, winning three out of three games.
Meanwhile in the futsal semi-final event SO Gibraltar we’re fighting against SO Puerto Rico for a place in the final. Puerto Rico were a very determined team and there were several fouls and yellow cards in what was a very tight match. Gibraltar went ahead twice with goals from Jansen Gilbert and Jeremy Prescott but their opponents came back each time. The match went into extra time in which Puerto Rico scored first only for Eddie Victor to level the game again in the last seconds. The match went to penalties and with nothing to separate the two sides, both netted all their 5 penalties. So it went to an elimination and unfortunately Puerto Rico came out victorious. SO Gibraltar now faced the SO Germany 1 team on Saturday who were beaten by Italy, and who they had already beaten once, for the bronze.
Gibraltar futsal team went on to beat Germany 1 by 9 goals to 3 on Saturday morning to claim the bronze medal.

Saturday
On the penultimate day of competition in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin there was more golden success for Team Gibraltar in what has been a highly successful Games. Dorian Zammit and Miguel Rubio put in a perfect performance in their bocce doubles final in the afternoon in winning well deserved gold medals.
Earlier on in the day the futsal team, which had been beaten the day before, played Germany 1 for the bronze medal position. Despite having one player out through injury, Callum Smith, the Gibraltar lads were fitter than the weakened German side and they did a great job in controlling the tempo of the game and controlling possession. At the end of the first half the score was 5-2 to Gibraltar who hammered home the advantage in the second half with better passing throughout the pitch and scored a further 4 goals. The Germans got one back but ran out of steam in the end with the match ending 9-3. There were two goals each for Jansen Gilbert, Jeremy Prescott, Giovanni Yeo and Gianni Ochello with one goal from Eddie Victor. Under the scorching sun it was a great performance and a well deserved bronze medal.
On the track in the 4 by 100m final the Gibraltar team of Marvin Zammit, Daniela Vinent, Gino Francis and Mark dos Santos came home in 4th position, putting in the fastest time they have ever done at 1:15:08.
In the bowling Patrick Slater came home in 5th position in his singles final while Shane Martinez got 6th position in his final.