Swimming in Malta has never brought home a Gold medal in the GSSE or a prestigious medal of any colour from a major event such as the Mediterranean Games or Olympics. Why? As a swimmer I have travelled countless times both to Europe and further away and today I have good insight to the answer.
Swimming is a very physical sport as it requires a lot of dedication and many tough hours in the pool from a very young age.
To make an Olympic Champion one has to be born with talent. I believe the odds of someone being born talented are purely by chance and since the population of Malta is only 400,000 it follows that bigger countries such as USA will produce more champions than we can.
Talent ties in closely with culture. The talented swimmer has to start training at the age of four if he/she wishes to win that Olympic medal. Again, if we use the example of the US, it is obligatory in the US for schoolchildren to swim at school from the age of four, so that the chances of the talent being picked up and exploited are close to 100% where as for Malta, what are the odds that Kimberely from Mosta starts training at four? I can assure you, since I coach swimming to young children that the interest is very low and the turnout poor.
Much more can be said about culture. Unfortunately most of the children that do take an interest in the sport and quit at the age of 13 because parents are concerned that the O level exams are coming up shortly and there is no time to study.
Having said this although I do not agree with those parents, the educational system is extremely stringent and offers no or little help to us athletes (swimmers).
Also, on a cultural level, the statistics show that Malta is among the first in the world when it comes to smoking and drinking. Paceville being so popular with all our friends, it is very hard for the athlete to remain focused and resist doing what all teenagers our age are up to nowadays.
Genetics: on this unfortunately we have no say. Maltese are typically very short and females especially tend to be too gifted around the thigh, buttock area. It definitely has been seen in the history of swimming that the taller the better and the bigger feet the better. Ian Thorpe, the Australian swimming champion is 2.0 metres tall!
Finances: Malta fares very poorly on this and we lack behind both bigger and smaller countries than ourselves. To make an Olympic champion you have to have good facilities.
Our national pool had been closed for the past four months leaving us with nothing but a cold alternative. The children need a 25-metre indoor pool during the winter cold months which is not available. Sport nowadays is all about science. The champions spend loads of money on supplements, innovative racing costumes and top coaches and much more. Just last year Malta did not even have a national coach!
From the above, one can appreciate that it is not luck, but hard work that makes an Olympic champion … we are making small steps in the right direction but it will take many years for a Maltese swimmer who trains locally to make us proud in the Olympics.
Andorra is only 40 days away and it really devastates us swimmers when we go training on a Saturday morning and the pool management tell us, “ I’m sorry but you cannot use the pool today because the foreigners have booked your lanes”….