Breakthrough needed despite progress

Recent performances by our swimmers in overseas meetings indicate that the Maltese can thrive when competing on a wider international platform. Whether this is enough is a moot point.

Alex Vella writes

There has been a leap forward by our swimmers in recent years in their bid to obtain better results. The national and age-group records set are evidence of this improvement. The first ever swimming gold medal on the international stage obtained last year by Angela Galea, the 2005 Sportswoman of the Year, was a fine capping and an incentive for our budding youngsters.

This progress has been maintained especially when our boys and girls venture abroad, and performances in the last couple of years suggest that further strides forward can be made.

Results at an International Swimming Meeting in Slovenia earlier this month were a case in point after three of our elite swimmers clocked very satisfactory times.

Neil Agius kept up his progress when setting a new national limit in the 400 metres in a time of 4 minutes 15.64 seconds. He then went agonisingly close to breaking his own 1,500 metres freestyle Maltese record when he covered the 30 laps in 16 minutes 52.89 seconds, a time which was only 0.28 seconds outside his previous best of 16:52.61 set in Berlin last April.

Apart from winning a silver medal in the longer race, the other satisfaction for the 19-year-old swimmer was that he is in the right physical shape at this stage of the season.

Agius has just completed a four-month period of training in Wales with Cardiff SC whose top swimmers, under Dave Haller, have already left for Australia for their acclimatisation programme prior to the Melbourne Commonwealth Games due to start in mid-March.

Other good performances in Slovenia came from Davina Mangion and Adrian Buttigieg who both set lifetime bests in the 200 and 400 metres freestyle races.

Mangion first clipped her own 400m previous best by over two seconds when recording 4 minutes 38.80 seconds, and then went on to cover the four-lap race in 2 minutes 12.22 seconds to improve her personal mark over the distance by over a second, and only 0.91 seconds outside the national record set up by Roberta Callus at the 2003 GSSE in Malta.

Buttigieg stopped the watches on 2 minutes 06.69 seconds in the 200 metres freestyle to register his fastest time ever in the event. The 16-year-old swimmer had also made personal inroads in the 400-metre race when he clocked 4 minutes 27.86 seconds.

Galea's form

Angela Galea's form in last month's swim meet in Geneve showed that she is nearing her best as she enters her last weeks of preparation for the Commonwealth Games. The girl has been swimming consistently close to her 200m butterfly record and a fine swim in Australia will crown her long successful career.

Mention must also be made of Kyle Scerri who broke several national and age-group records during the last two years, particularly when swimming against foreign opposition.

All this shows that our swimmers are able to raise their levels if they have more competitive exposure overseas. However, such initiatives, including training abroad, very often are at the expense of the swimmers' families, and thus can only be undertaken on the odd occasion.

But for a couple or so of our top performers in the sport, and at that, only on the basis of token representation, the Olympics, the World and European Championships and the Commonwealth Games are out of reach for our mainstream swimmers, at least for the foreseeable future.

Beyond that, it is localised meetings like the one in Slovenia, last month's event in Geneve and several others before which can provide our swimmers with an incentive-orientated platform. That, besides the biennial GSSE.

Otherwise, local competition is the normal niche where our boys and girls can hope to better their standards. At least, monthly time trials in the last two years have shown that a number of young swimmers are setting things in motion.

Many will ask if this is enough in a sport where other countries are progressing by leaps and bounds. A quick glance at our standards will reveal that there is still some way to go even to emulate the results obtained by swimmers from some small European States.

Much more has to be done, starting from the fledglings and going right up to the top swimmers. Facilities have to be tuned to meet the needs of all swimmers during the whole year. On top of this, optimal use of human resources has to be a priority, with a sound coaching network being a sine qua non.

Unless there is a real breakthrough, progress in this sport can only be relative. The will is there but financial and technical stumblings blocks have to be done away with.