Mark Galea, ASA vice-president, writes:

It looks pretty obvious from the Maltese Olympic Committee's response to the interview with national team members Neil Agius and Andrea Agius, published in The Times on May 23, that they had failed to understand what was being said by the two swimmers.

It also looks clear that general secretary Joe Cassar did not set out to answer their request for more respect and recognition but instead did his best to try and belittle their achievements.

In the interview, the swimmers made it clear that they had accepted the ruling of the MOC in being omitted from Team Malta for the Cyprus Games but "felt disappointed at the way their efforts were practically discarded".

The boys expressed regret that their efforts were frequently thrown away by the MOC and others by saying the standard in men's swimming is way below that of the women.

When using the International Points System (IPS), the internationally-recognised method to compare men and women's swimming, in Malta the men's level is on a par with that of the women if not slightly better.

Mr Cassar's last point that the MOC "can only include in its contingent those with a chance of competing for a medal and not mere participation", jars harshly with a quote from the MOC website which states "our main commitment is that of encouraging, promoting and funding Maltese athletes... to improve their level of competitiveness".

The Swimming Board would also like to point out that funding for our national team in preparation of the GSSE was only finalised by the MOC last week. Before, the Swimming Board was only allocated €2,000, meaning that we had to cancel two planned trips abroad during which our swimmers would have had a better opportunity to improve times.

This is especially true for Neil Agius who has no competition in Malta for his main event, the 1,500m.

This year his achievements in other races showed that he has enough potential to swim substantially faster than his current best time given the opportunity to race in a more competitive field for the 1,500m distance.

The secret of swimming is training and competing as a team.

But, it is a shame that Malta's highest authority in sport should react in this way. A place on the podium should not be the only motto for them to adopt.

Winning a medal in men's GSSE swimming is no mean feat.

So, in our opinion, those who have an outside chance should have been included. It also makes sense that if it is our ambition to finally win that elusive medal we need to move forward and give our swimmers all the chances available, at least, to try.