As part of its preparations for the next Games of the Small States of Europe (GSSE), to take place in Monaco in 2007, the Malta Olympic Committee (MOC) on Wednesday organised a seminar entitled: 'GSSE Monaco 2007 - A New Challenge'.
The underlying purpose of this seminar was to analyse the performances of the Maltese athletes in this year's Andorra GSSE and the Mediterranean Games that were held in Almeria, as a base for further improvement.
In his opening address, Lino Farrugia Sacco, president of the MOC, stressed that for athletes and organisations to move forward, it is essential to learn from past experience and understand the new challenges ahead.
The keynote lecture was delivered by Pippo Psaila, the MOC Director of Sport.
Mr Psaila highlighted the manifold preparatory work being undertaken by the MOC for the benefit of athletes and sports organisations, namely:
¤ the strengthening of the existing Outstanding/Elite/Aspirant/Semi-Pro Athlete schemes.
¤ ensuring that all coaches possess the right qualifications (as approved by the MOC).
¤ seeking and providing new opportunities to enable local athletes to obtain scholarships in various forms.
¤ bolstering sparring partnerships.
¤ identifying potential elite athletes living abroad to represent Malta under the non-resident scheme.
¤ regular Functional Diagnostic Laboratory monitoring and the evaluation programme.
¤ advice from the MOC nutritionist, medical screenings, anti-doping education and control, both in and out of competition testing.
¤ access to assistance from CONI (Italian National Olympic Committee) within the CONI-MOC agreement.
¤ exchange of info/data through collegiate and technical meetings organised regularly by the MOC.
Mr Psaila pointed out that these programmes would apply to those disciplines that have a proven track record in major events and satisfy all the criteria set by the MOC.
Guest speakers during the seminar included Saviour Portelli, president of the Malta Shooting Federation, Anthony Chircop, president of the Malta Amateur Athletics Association, Alex Anastasi, from the Malta Table Tennis Association and Dr Chris Vella on behalf of the Malta Taekwondo Association.
Success in Sport
Swimmer Angela Galea, a gold medal winner in the last GSSE, gave an interesting presentation entitled 'Success in Sport'.
Galea said that success depends on a number of key aspects, not least hard preparation spanning a number of years.
"My gold medal in the GSSE 2005 (200m butterfly) was the result of five years of intensive training," Galea remarked.
During these years, Galea practised under the guidance of Hungarian coach Attila Selmeci between 1999-2003 and later under his compatriot Steven Kormos.
During a discussion, most of the participants acknowledged that the GSSE are an important event for local sport and are highly esteemed by the Maltese public.
Participants also expressed optimism that effective long-term planning and better preparation by officials and athletes would yield good results for Malta in the Monaco GSSE 2007.
All associations stressed the need to have good training and competition venues throughout the year and above all, adequate funding to enable them to implement their training programmes.
The general view among the various representatives of local sporting bodies was that Maltese sports is being run on a professional basis by volunteers. However, the public cannot expect them to deliver without the financial support which, when compared to that received by other associations in small countries like Malta, is still inadequate.