The 12 months covering the year about to end again showed an upward graph in terms of national and junior long-course records as well as personal bests from several swimmers.
Apart from that there were six national records in the short-course FINA World Championship in Doha earlier this month.
These came from Neil Muscat and his sister Nicola, two each, and one each from Julian Harding and Matthew Zammit.
Several swimmers could entertain a sense of satisfaction over their performances during the year, despite the number of records not being as high as that of the previous year.
Pride of place goes to those who set new long-course marks when competing locally and overseas.
There were nine in all, three by males and six by females. These were three national limits and six in the juniors’ category, with one overlapping.
The senior records were registered by Harding in the 50 breaststroke in 29.33 seconds, Amy Micallef who swam the 100 breaststroke in 1:16.78 and Pia Grech who did the 50 breaststroke in 33.77 seconds.
The junior records were those of Kyle Buhagiar in the 100 freestyle Group B (58.83), Neil Muscat 50 backstroke Group D (28.47), Mya Azzopardi in the 50 and 200 breast Group B (36.82 and 2:52.00) respectively, Amy Micallef 100 and 200 breaststroke Group D (1:16.78 and 2:45.49) and Francesca Falzon Young in the 50m freestyle Group B (28.71)
Again one could notice that records in 2014 were more common in the shorter races especially those covering one lap, with five new marks being posted.
The two-lap races accounted for two records while the other came in the 200 metres.
This shows that the record-breaking trend like that in the previous year is lacking in the longer races where no significant swimmer ventured successfully in the 400-metre and longer events.
Endurance races
A glance at the statistics shows that the Maltese records have prevailed for quite some years in endurance races starting from the eight-lap events.
The most recent records were in the 400m free set by Edward Caruana Dingli in 2011, when he clocked 4:11.37, and that of Nicola Muscat whose 18:34.58 in the 1,500 metres free was also registered in 2011.
Otherwise, the other limits go back to five and six years and more, even stretching to 16 years when John J. Tabone swam the 400 Individual Medley in 4:48.92 in 1998.
This local shortfall in record trends in longer events is a situation which the coaches should address, especially by encouraging swimmers both males and females to persevere with the sport during puberty age and beyond where staying power surfaces more.
This year, at least, reserved some satisfaction in that it produced the best technical result ever by a Maltese national team swimmer.
This was achieved by Harding, the Neptunes WPSC swimmer whose progress in these last years when setting up ten individual long course records, at national and junior categories, and one short-course mark besides forming part of two record-breaking relay quartets, has indeed been remarkable
His time earlier this month of 29.33 seconds in the one-lap breaststroke event earned him 751 points according to the latest FINA International Points System (IPS).
That total put him at the summit of the all-time list of other Maltese swimmers, one point more than Andrew Chetcuti’s 750 points courtesy of his 51.61 seconds in the 100 freestyle in Luxembourg in 2013.
It is this technical progress as translated by the IPS which should be a priority for our swimmers.
Their challenge is to keep im-proving for as long as possible.