The Commonwealth Games are held every four years. In 2002 they were held in Manchester, England and this time (2006) they will be held in Melbourne, Australia. Swimming is one of the leading sports in these games and is very competitive as countries like Australia, Canada, South Africa and Britain all produce some world class swimmers.

Four years ago Malta sent two female swimmers to participate in these games, Angela Galea and Roberta Callus. Both set National Records in their respective events.

This year despite the difficulties that our swimmers had to face like the closure of the pool in December and January and also financial problems, I still believe that some of our swimmers have reached the required standards although still two months away from the games.

In preparation for these games our national swimmers have been on a training camp in Italy for nearly two weeks in December. They have also participated in two International meets, one in San Marino in November and the other recently in January, in Geneva, Switzerland. The latter was a very high level meet and Angela Galea obtained third place in the final of the 200m fly with a time of 2:21.69.

Some of our national swimmers are close to the required standards set by the MOC and hopefully Maltese swimming will be represented in Melbourne in 2006.

Dr. Michael Gialanze

Chairman of

ASA Swimming Board