What went wrong in Athens?

The Olympic Games returned to their place of birth and after two weeks of joy and anguish, the event has been consigned to the tides of history. Nicknamed as the Dream Olympics, the greatest sporting event on the planet ran smoothly without any major hitches.

The MOC contingent returned home on Monday. It was a very disappointing performance by our athletes as a whole.

No one was realistically hoping that one of ours was going to win a medal though deep down I have to confess that I was expecting something better from William Chetcuti in Double Trap. I dealt with Chetcuti's performance in this column a fortnight ago so I will shift my focus to the six other athletes who were representing us in Greece.

For the record, the following table represents the number of athletes participating in Athens 2004 from the other GSSE countries.

None of the GSSE countries managed to win a medal. Some, like Iceland and Cyprus, had a sizeable group in Athens. Iceland had the handball team competing whereas the Cypriots had 11 participants in athletics and another eight in swimming apart from others in sailing, weightlifting, shooting, tennis and mountain biking.

Andorra had a rather considerable contingent considering the relative small size of the country.

They are preparing for the next GSSE which they will host in May next year. Diplomacy must have played an important role within the corridors of the International Olympic Committee as it is highly unlikely that all 10 Andorra athletes obtained an automatic qualification for the Olympics.

So what about the performance of the Maltese?

I have always been known to call a spade a spade even if it had never made me popular with some. I did expect a better showing by some of our athletes particularly Tanya Blake who became the first ever Maltese to qualify for an event on her own merits.

Something went terribly wrong in her race and instead of vying for a place in the semi-finals of the 800 metres, Blake barely struggled to cross the finish line. Top athletes are bound to experience an off day but this was such a dismal performance that demands an explanation.

Blake qualified for the 800 metres a good year before the actual event in Athens. Given that she is based overseas, it is very hard for members of the Malta Olympic Committee to monitor her training progress and her psychological frame of mind for such an important event.

Blake is used to the pressure of the international circuit and it is hard to imagine that she was overwhelmed by the occasion.

True, there was a nudge from the Morocco girl during the race but this is part and parcel of the game and seasoned athletes are expected to have mastered the tricks of the trade and cope with such tactics.

Our other participant in athletics was Darren Gilford. Selected to run in the 100m, all that Gilford could hope for was to improve on his personal best. Although he narrowly failed to register a new record, he did manage a satisfactory race.

Main objectives

Still, the main objective of any athlete at the Olympics is to improve on their own best performance and failure to achieve this simply means that the objective was not reached.

Swimming was another area where we registered disappointing results. Our two best swimmers both failed to reach their targets.

After years of harping on sport strategy, the stark reality is that we have never managed to put together a decent swimming team in the last ten years. Despite the hard work put in by the ASA Swimming Board, very few are lured to the sport and remain committed at a higher level.

To make matters worse, over the past few months our swimmers could not practise at the National Pool due to refurbishment works and even though they were sent on training camps abroad, the fact remains that their preparation for Athens was flawed. In all probability, we shall never make the grade in swimming and it's about time we take some tough decisions in this regard.

As for the other athletes, their performance could also have been better.

Marcon Bezzina came up against one of the best names in judo but that is practically a certainty when you are competing at the most important sporting event.

Although a young athlete can gain invaluable experience from such participation, the Olympic Games may be beyond the reach of most Maltese athletes and it would make more sense if our budding youngsters are exposed to less demanding competitions than the Olympic Games.

Same thing for sailing. We need to have our sailors exposed to top level competition regularly before sending them to participate in such high level games. In Malta, competition is limited and extremely hard for our sailors to get good results at the Olympics. This is a very different playing field to that of the GSSE.

We simply have to take stock of the situation and invest in those who have the true potential to make inroads where it really matters.

And investment should mean a medium term commitment during which an athlete has all the time to plan competitions overseas without having to worry whether the federation will have enough money to cover the airfare... I guess any other comment would be superfluous.