Thomas Borg finished his participation on behalf of Team Malta in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics setting a new national record and exceeding his personal best.

The Maltese Paralympian completed the 400m T47 class sprints heat event with a time of 55.34 seconds, achieving a new personal best.

This exceeds his previous best of 57.73 seconds, setting a new national record in his class.

Borg finished the race in the 6th position.

For the Paralympian, this was his second personal best during the competition, as he previously also improved his time in the men’s 100m T47 heats, at 12.01 seconds.

Despite the positive result, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games were always going to be tough for Malta, the smallest country participating in the tournament.

Malta Paralympic Committee President Joseph Grima had admitted at a press conference that the Maltese para-athletes were starting off at a disadvantage, with financial limitations meaning they cannot compete overseas more than once a year.

“Our para-athletes will be giving their best, but we need to understand that they only compete abroad once a year, which is how much we can afford,” he said.

“They’ll be competing against athletes who compete regularly in high-level competitions.”

However, swimmer Vladyslava Kravchenko made it clear that these games were about something greater than the individual Maltese athletes.

“As someone told us yesterday: You may be the smallest nation but you have the biggest hearts,” she said.

“We are here to pave the way for the next generation of Para athletes and be the living proof that your dreams are what you make of them.”

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