Peter Micallef, Secretary Malta Laser Class Association, writes:

Mario Aquilina's sailing performance at the Olympics should not have come as a surprise or disappointment to the Malta Olympic Committee (MOC) who engaged the sailing coach only three months prior to the Games in Athens.

The same coach, Jerome Mainemare, was employed for a full year by the MOC before last year's GSSE.

On that occasion our sailors peaked in time and won five from a possible nine medals. Two months later, there was Benji Borg's remarkable fifth place at the European Optimist Championships.

Cypriot Harris Papadopoulos was fourth in the GSSE 2003. In Athens he placed 28th. Did nine months without a coach cost Aquilina 11 places at Olympic level? Mainemare had left Malta the day the GSSE sailing events finished.

Aquilina's performance in Greece highlights the MOC's inability to budget a four-year financial campaign to support our prospective Olympians.

These financial restraints are imposed on the MOC as they are dependent on the whim of yearly government grants for the majority of its income.

Until the MOC gains financial independence from the government it is unreasonable to expect better performances from our athletes.

Perhaps, the privatization of the Lottery Department is a missed opportunity for all Maltese sport.

Sports federations need to plan and budget an athlete's campaign to perform well at the 2008 Olympics now, four years before the event.

The seeds for our future Olym-pians have been sown. William Chetcuti is on track and others look promising. At first, Ben Ainslie, sailing gold medallist in Sydney and Athens, could only count a 68th placing as his best Optimist Euro result.