MOC News: Sports media geared up for Monaco

Malta Independent Tuesday, 29 May 2007, 00:00 Last update: about 13 years ago

The local sports media is well geared up for the 12th Games of the Small States of Europe – Monaco 2007. Recent action on the part of the Maltese Olympic Committee to ensure good coverage of the GSSE has proved fruitful. During the last few weeks, local sports connoisseurs have had a variety of programmes to choose from. Whether it was Sport Extra or Replay on NET TV, Zona Sport or L-Argument on One TV, Line Up on TVM or MIA Olympic Special on Channel 22, the topic of the day was Malta’s participation in Monaco 2007.

And credit also goes to the weekly Sunday programme on RTK and to The Malta Independent double page weekly articles.

As from next Sunday, all the leading television and radio stations, as well as all the daily and weekly newspapers, will be covering in toto all the news and happenings in the Malta contingent in Monaco.

Accompanying the Malta contingent will be television and media crews including journalists Manwel Gauci, Henry Brincat, Peter Cossai, Mark Cutajar, Vicky Licari and Valhmor Camilleri, as well as cameramen from leading TV stations.

Coordination in Monaco will be through the Director of Media and PR Charles Camenzuli and Laurie Pace, who will be responsible for ensuring that results and general information will be available online on the official website of the Maltese Olympic Committee: www.nocmalta.org

MIA Olympic Special – What’s On

Thursday, 31 May on TVM at 5pm, Friday, 1 June on E22 at 9pm (RPT), Sunday, 3 June on E22 at 10am (RPT) and Monday, 4 June on E22 at 2.30pm (RPT) will feature the following:

GSSE Section – The qualifiers for Monaco 2007

In a few days’ time, hundreds of athletes from the eight smallest nations in Europe will be rubbing shoulders with each other for the top honours during the 12th Games of the Small States of Europe, which are being held in Monaco. The final selection of athletes has now been made public, and therefore in this programme we can have a look at all the disciplines and who is representing Malta in the Games.

Featured Event – COJI Games

The COJI (Comité d’Organi-sation des Jeux des Iles)or the Island Games as they are more generally known, were held in Corsica from 21 to 26 May, with 23 islands participating in various disciplines. Malta first participated in 1998 and has since taken part in several of these games. This year, the 11th year of the games, Malta was represented in two disciplines, athletics and sailing.

Highlight Events – Athletes pay courtesy visit to Prime Minister

Yesterday, Team Malta paid a courtesy visit on Prime Minister Dr Lawrence Gonzi at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. A welcoming address by MOC secretary-general Joseph Cassar was followed by an audio visual presentation. Director of Sport P. Psaila, MOC president Justice L. Farrugia Sacco and Prime Minister Gonzi all made speeches and a group photo was taken to mark the occasion.

The schedule is available every week on www.nocmalta.org and in The Malta Independent every Tuesday. Produced in collaboration with E22.

Association news: Tennis – a positive GSSE tradition

Godfrey Bonello

PRO MTF

Tennis has been played in Malta since the 19th century. However, the birth year of official local tennis is considered to be 1966, when the first meeting of the Malta Lawn Tennis Association was held.

A number of major and minor clubs were formed and interest in tennis flourished. Striving to

further improve the game, the MLTA was accepted as a full member of the International Tennis Federation.

The first benefit was that in 1986, the men’s national team participated for the first time in the Davis Cup, while the ladies took part in the Federation Cup. Malta also began organising international tournaments like the Satellite Circuits. In 1987, Malta began participating in the Games for Small States.

These last seven years have seen Malta organising with great success no fewer than four European Championships, two Davis Cup ties, three ATP Challenger Tournaments and three ITF junior ranking events.

Last year, the organisational abilities of Maltese officials were recognised by the holding in Malta of the AGM of the European Tennis Association.

In 1994, the MLTA changed its name to the Malta Tennis Federation. A policy was formulated and followed ever since. Maltese officials also started to form part of international tennis committees. Since 2004, the President of the MTF has been Tony Cilia Pisani. The ambition of the federation is to have its own tennis centre.

The federation’s success in the organisational field has been enhanced by years of success on court when we played within certain reachable tennis strata, especially in various editions of the GSSE. Etched in golden hues in the history of Maltese tennis are the various victories achieved by the Maltese national tennis teams in the Games reserved for nations of a standard comparable to ours.

To date, the national teams have won 27 GSSE medals: five gold, five silver and 16 bronze.

Our first ever participation in the 1987 Monaco Games saw the formidable doubles duo of Helen Asciak and Carol Curmi winning gold in the ladies doubles. They also came third in the ladies’ singles event. The same result was obtained by them in the subsequent 1989 Games held in Cyprus.

On the heights of Andorra the stonewall Helen and the strong Carol again won the doubles gold in 1991. Carol also won bronze in the singles, while Chris Gatt and Daryl Delicata broke the ice for our men’s teams by winning bronze in the doubles.

The 1993 Games in Malta witnessed the best ever result for tennis. In front of a record number of spectators at the Marsa Sports Club Centre Court, Helen and Carol won the doubles gold for the fourth time in succession, while our men Gordon Asciak and Chris Gatt played as fabulously to win another gold.

Carol also performed well in the singles, where she won a silver medal. In 1995, we won silver in the men’s doubles with Gordon Asciak and Mark Schembri, while Carol and Helen were third in the doubles event.

Lisa Camenzuli arrived on the scene in Iceland, where she won bronze in the women’s singles and in the ladies’ doubles with Helen. Liechtenstein saw her winning silver in Carol’s company while Gordon Asciak and Mark Schembri won bronze.

It was again bronze for Lisa in the 2001 Games in San Marino in the singles and in the doubles with Carol. Gordon and Mark repeated the same feat.

Malta 2003 saw Carol and Lisa winning silver and Lisa bronze in the singles. In 2005, Lisa had a similar result with the singles bronze and the doubles bronze in Steffi Pace’s company. Boris Pashanski won silver in the men’s singles.

Monaco 2007

The team travelling to Monaco will be made up of the following :

Men: Matthew Asciak and Matija Pecotic

Ladies: Lisa Camenzuli, Elaine Genovese and Sanja Jukic

Officials: David Farrugia Sacco ( Secretary General MTF and Robert Tarpey (national coach).

Athletes’ profile:

PHILIP CARUANA TURNER

Club: Acro Jumpers Gymnastics Club

Sport: Gymnastics

Discipline: Men’s Artistic

Started: Aged 7

Competitive Achievements

1999