Artistic swimmer Zea Montfort has been awarded the Atlas Youth Athlete of the month Award for the month of September. Montfort participated with the National Artistic Swimming Team in the 13-15 age category, in the first European Youth Artistic Swimming Championships & Mediterranean Artistic Swimming Cup 2021 in Rijeka, Croatia, between the 7^th and 12^th September.

Malta had to contend with tough competition, including Russia, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Norway and Italy. Despite coming up against more experienced athletes, as a solo, Zea Montfort went through the final and ranked 7^th in the Comen ranking. In the combined rankings (Europeans and Comen) she came 14^th out of 20.

The trophy for the September 2021 Atlas Youth Athlete of the Month together with the sports apparel voucher were presented to Zea Montfort by Matthew von Brockdorff, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Atlas Insurance. The MSJA was represented by Administrator Stephen Azzopardi for this presentation.

So far, the 2021 winners are: Kayden Lagana (Tenpin Bowling) – January, Francesca Curmi (Tennis) – February, Mya Azzopardi (Swimming) – March, Jeremy Zammit (Long Jump) – April, Malta U-15 Water Polo National Team – May, Sasha Gatt (Swimming) – June, Jeremy Zammit (Long Jump) – July and U17 Women’s Water Polo National Team – August.

This award is a joint initiative of the Malta Sports Journalists Association and Atlas Insurance. The adjudicating panel of this award takes note of all the youths’ achievements of the month under review and at the same time it invites local sport associations and federations to send in their nominations for consideration if they feel that any of their under-21 athletes have distinguished themselves during that month.

Nominations for this award may be sent via email to [email protected].

The rules and regulations of the award can be viewed on the website www.maltasportsjournalists.com.