Our swimmers engaged in last month’s 5th ASA Age-Group Swimming Meeting at Tal-Qroqq National Swimming Complex may not have had an auspicious start to the year.

There were only a few notable results but no junior or national records were set.

Only at the end of January could national coach Andy Colbourn enthuse over truly positive results as two of our swimmers registered five national limits between them during the Luxembourg Euro Meet.

Male sprinter, Andrew Chetcuti, improved his own marks set last year in the 50 and 100 metres freestyle when he swam the distances in 23.04 and 51.16 seconds respectively, and 24.47 seconds in the 50 ’fly to beat the record set by Maltese-Australian Ryan Gambin in 2008.

The previous national bests were 24.17 and 51.35 in the freestyle set last year and 24.48 in the butterfly event.

Amy Micallef consolidated her standing as the number one breaststroke swimmer when she broke her own Malta records in the 50 and 200 metres races in 34.32 and 2:42.64 seconds in the respective events.

There were other encouraging clockings in Luxembourg by Matthew Zammit, Matthew Galea, Julian Harding, Michael and Raoul Stafrace, Sarah Demicoli and Nicola Muscat

It is hoped that these results will bode well for these and the other top swimmers as they bid to register faster times and qualify to represent Malta in global competition at least in the ‘B’ category.

The latest performances go some way towards proving that overseas competitions for our swimmers offer the best scenario for them to improve.

Pitting their abilities against faster foreign swimmers is the incentive which pushes them to new limits. This has been the trend during the last years when they travelled abroad and faced better quality swimmers.

A glance at past records reveal this fact as new marks were very often set during international, regional and global meets.

At this point it is interesting to note that Maltese records in the males category have improved at a faster rate than those of females even if some marks have stood for quite a number of years.

Six male records set between 2006 and 2009 are still standing, with Neil Agius still claiming the oldest one in the 1,500 freestyle established in 2006.

In the females section there are also six records but these go back to 12 years ago and longer. The oldest ones, set by Gail Rizzo in the 200 backstroke and 200 IM, have been in the list since 1997.

Satisfactory levels

Although improvement has been evident in the junior ranks in recent years, there is still some way to go for our swimmers to reach satisfactory levels in terms of bettering the records on a more regular basis.

The real gauge of progress is the frequency of new limits, which in other countries is higher than that in Malta, despite the fact that our records are understandably inferior and so liable to a better turnover.

With the current swimming and coaching regime and the dedication of the swimmers, besides the support of the ASA, there is every reason to believe that standards can improve across the board in the junior and national categories.

The current year will, invariably, be another testing period for this sport.

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