Nikolai Portelli was the oldest athlete to represent Malta at the Beijing Olympics at the age of 26. He had not participated in any previous Olympic Games. He qualified for the Olympics by using a wildcard because his personal best time of 22.11 seconds was 1.36 seconds slower than the "B" qualifying standard for the men's 200 metres. Before the games Portelli said that attending the Olympic Games was a personal dream for himself and revealed that he would make the most from the opportunity and aimed to perform to the best of his ability. He was drawn in the fourth heat on 17 August, finishing eighth (and last) out of all athletes, with a time of 22.31 seconds. Portelli finished 60th (equal with Oleg Juravlyov from Uzbekistan) out of 62 runners overall. He did not progress to the second round because his time was 1.44 seconds slower than the slowest athlete who made the later stages.