This year proved to be quite a successful one for Birkirkara St Joseph’s open water swimmer Keith Bartolo.

After competing in three open water swimming races and achieving very encouraging results in Australia last January, Keith focused his attention on the open water swimming series organised by his club.

However, he took the opportunity to gain more international experience by competing in three five kilometre open water swimming races which were part of the Italian National Swimming Championships held by the Federazione Italiana Nuoto.

The experience gained from such races was of great help for Keith and his future international commitments. Keith even managed to achieve a very good time of 1hour 9min 24 sec in the second race.