A total of 13 records were broken by Maltese swimmers in last weekend's Berlin International Swimming Meet - an annual event which attracts hundreds of swimmers from various European clubs.
This record haul has further established this German city as fertile ground in terms of records and personal bests by our boys and girls.
As has been the trend recently, new age-group marks featured more prominently, with no fewer than ten records being set in these categories, whereas new limits at national level, where progress has not been so brisk, were set in three events.
The national records came from Andrea Agius and Francesca Paolella, all in the breaststroke. The former swam the 50 and 100-metre events in 31.06 and 1:09.23 respectively, the previous bests being 31.57 and 1:10.15 registered last year by Paul Herrera. Paolella swam the one-lap race in 35.62 to trim 0.02 seconds off her own record set in 2006.
In the Age-Group races, none fared better than Mark Sammut. He hit the Group C record target on four occasions.
First, he swam the 100 and 200 free in 57.42 and 2:06.71 to better his own marks by 1.05 and 0.34 seconds respectively.
Then, this up-and-coming 15-year-old managed to erase the name of Christian Gialanze in the 200 back when he swam the distance in 2:20.65, 1.01 seconds inside the previous best which had stood since 1991.
On Sunday afternoon, he clocked 1:05.23 in 100 back to beat his own previous time set in July by three-fifths of a second.
Nikki Muscat is also hitting the news for the right reasons as she too was very successful, with three new records in Group C.
On Saturday she swam the 50 'fly in 30.25, 1.81 seconds faster than Christine Cachia did ten years ago.
Her 1:01.94 in the 100 free improved Talisa Pace's previous category best in 2007 by 0.58 seconds. On the last day of competition the fast-improving Muscat swam the 50 free in 28.83, thus beating her own mark set in May by 0.15 seconds.
Daniel Galea, who like Sammut and Agius is in the national squad, also managed to remove an old record Group C which stood since 1996 when swimming the 100 breast in 1:12.48, 0.48 faster than the time of John Buttigieg. He followed up with a 32.79 to improve on his own mark set last July by one fifth of a second.
Another record to go was in the 50 'fly Group B, an event which is the domain of Matthew Zammit. The 13-year-old covered the distance in 30.13, thus trimming three hundredths of a second off the previous best he himself set two months ago.
Apart from these records there were several personal bests from other swimmers, especially those from the 16-strong Neptunes group piloted by coach Gail Rizzo.
Other PBs came from national team and Iasis swimmers. In the process a number of medals were also won.
This year's venture has thus more than fulfilled the aspirations of our coaches, including those of national team mentor, Andy Colbourn.
"As I said before we left for Berlin, the new age of co-operation is bearing fruit. I am very happy with the performances in Germany, especially with the national records in the male breaststroke. Finally, we have a male swimmer who has gone under the 1:10 barrier, and this at such an early time in the season.
"So, I am hoping to see the breaststroke standard move on considerably. Age-Group standards have taken a huge leap forward. Some records have stood the test of time and have now been erased decisively from the books," the national coach said.
Colbourn agreed that this good form at an early time of the new season is bound to encourage the swimmers to work harder through the winter and into the next cycles of the swimming programme.
"Progress must be maintained," he stressed.
The swimmers' work ethic when turning up for their daily early morning training and afternoon sessions is commendable, as are the financial sacrifices of their families when sending them abroad to take part in competitions.
On the plus side is the fact that this winter the National Pool at Tal-Qroqq, unlike previous years, will not close down except for Yuletide.
Braving the rain and cold weather will not deter them from doing routine practice, although this time they will probably have to contend with lack of shelter which has hitherto been available at the covered area behind the starting blocks.
It is understood that swimmers and leisure users of the pool, as well as waterpolo players attending training sessions in winter, will not be able to use this space which provides cover, rain or shine, since the area is being taken up as an extension of the gym.
If this work goes ahead as planned, some alternative arrangement ought to be found to lessen the inconvenience of regular pool users.
Meanwhile, and in the wake of performances so far this season, our elite swimmers, as well as those representing the clubs, are determined to pursue their programme of preparation, with clear objectives in sight.
And in order to achieve pre-set goals, the record books which have had some long-standing limits erased in recent months, must continue to be re-written, especially in the seniors' category.
The primary gauge of our swimmers' progress remains more breakthroughs across the board in their standards.