Special Olympics athlete for Gozo-Malta challenge

A new recruit within the Birkirkara St Joseph Sports Club fold is another athlete with special needs. Justin Spiteri, 18, has joined the swimming section of the club and is currently taking part in the Open Sea Swimming Series.

He completed all races and today week he is going to try the Gozo-Malta Challenge organised by his club.

Spiteri has been a keen sportsman since he was a boy, starting his career with Fr Clifton's Savio athletics team, competing in track and field events and cross country running.

Later, he joined Special Olympics (Malta) in athletics and swimming under the guidance of Anna Calleja and Angelique Attard respectively.

In the Regional Games of Seville in 2004, he won two gold medals in swimming and in 2005 he won another gold medal in bocce (singles) at the Special Olympics European Youth Games in Rome.

Last winter, Spiteri had to stop all training for several weeks due to a hand injury and missed qualification for the Special Olympics World Championships in China next October.

Quite determinedly, Spiteri immediately started to train for endurance swimming. In fact, he has already figured in four 2km races and another one of 4km in his build-up to next week's 5.5km Gozo-Malta event.

In all races, Spiteri was accompanied by training partner James Sapienza who will join Spiteri again for the Gozo channel crossing challenge.

Sport has helped Spiteri im-mensely as it has given him self-confidence to win over the setbacks which he may encounter in his everyday life.