The entire championship cycle, including the preliminaries and the candidates, were kindly sponsored by Simonds Farsons Cisk plc.

Dr Borg was born on 2nd May 1962, is married to Mariella nee Buontempo and they have two children. He graduated in medicine at the University of Malta and later specialised and qualified as a consultant in the field of arthritis and rheumatism.

This was the first time that Dr Borg was crowned as champion of Malta. In his chess career he has represented Malta in a number of Chess Olympiads with his most notable result being the silver medal he won in the Malta Olympiads on Board six in 1980, scoring eight out of ten.

He has also played in the Olympiads of 1986 in Dubai, 1988 in Salonika and 2000 in Istanbul. He also took part in the world championship zonal in 1998 in Greece.

Dr Borg left Malta in 1989 to further his studies and gave up playing chess until 1995. During his stay in Wales he played in a number of international events, including the European team championships for Cardiff, and other Abergavenny chess clubs.

He returned to the Maltese chess scene in April of this year and has participated in the British team championships apart from the Malta championship.