Youth development is often not the first thing that comes to mind when discussing Maltese sports; some may immediately think of football, while others might highlight the expansion of sports facilities and recently, the selection of certain Team Malta representatives caused a stir. However, what about the state of the development of our young athletes?

Darren Bezzina - a physical education teacher and professional doctorate student in Strength and Conditioning at London's St Mary's University - believes that Malta's approach towards youth sports, which is often based on youth competition results, is inherently flawed.

Bezzina said that by focusing on the results of youth competitions, rather than on each child's development in the discipline, Malta is lagging behind other successful countries.

Bezzina is a PE teacher at the National Sports School with an academic background in sports science, coaching and fitness, and strength and conditioning. Aside from his ongoing professional doctorate, he holds two sports-related Master's degrees: one in Strength and Conditioning with the same institution, and a Master's in Physical Education through the Institute for Education (IfE). He also coaches in gymnastics and fitness classes and shares his knowledge on the sports sector through his Facebook page, Malta Sports Science Revolution.

Bezzina told this newsroom that Malta's approach undertaken by its youth sports models "often leads to long-term failure". The sports expert believes that rather than focusing on youth success, the focus of youth sports models should centre around one's development in the long-term so that young people may be more likely to have a successful career at adult level.

"If the priority is for young athletes to win at youth levels, for example, an U17 championship, all youths will stop by adult level and we will win nothing," Bezzina said.

The sports expert stated that Malta's youth sports system, to some extent, focuses too much on empowering its prodigies.

After calling for prodigies not to be granted any privileges by clubs or coaches (so as not to develop any bad attitudes), he noted that many prodigies quit their discipline around when they turn 18 years old - often through burnout or natural life progression.

Bezzina doesn't believe that local sports infrastructures support young late developers. Referencing academic studies, he observed that "when late developers are granted the same opportunities as early developers, they often turn out to be better than early developers", since late bloomers tend to work harder to compensate for their natural disadvantages, and this carries over in the future after they eventually physically mature.

After stating that late developers often get cut out from these systems worldwide, Bezzina discussed a proposal that could bridge this pitfall.

He said that abroad, a concept known as "bio-banding" is used where, in certain tournaments, youths are split up by their physical maturity, rather than their biological age. While this system does not account for one's mental maturity, it grants more opportunity for adolescents experiencing much later growth spurts than their contemporaries.

Bezzina recommended that, if resources permit, sports programmes should go beyond teaching young children only the isolated skills specific to each sport.

"This is not necessarily bad, but I believe we're losing a lot from (specialising from such a young age)," he said.

Bezzina said that long-term athlete development programmes should delay specialisation till "as late as possible". He said that at youth level, it is vital for children to acquire as many skills as possible.

In this regard, he referenced the development programme of one of football's most historically successful academies (and till today), "one of the strongest youth development systems in Europe", Ajax FC. He discussed how young children in their football nursery are exposed to other sports, such as judo and gymnastics.

Bezzina said that by being introduced to other sporting disciplines at such a young age, children can absorb their pros and use these different skills to their advantage - in Ajax FC's case, on the football pitch. For example, becoming proficient in gymnastics increases one's balance, flexibility and strength; these are all attributes that will boost one's performance within their primary sport when heightened.

In addition, practising athletics should boost one's speed, agility, power and strength - all of which are skill components which can be carried over to many other sports.

Aside from preventing boredom, doing this could reduce injuries in the long-run. He said that he has encountered several 13-year-old adolescents who are already suffering from lower back problems, tennis elbow (through repeated movements), and ACL injuries through insufficient strength and conditioning. Bezzina commented that weightlifting could teach one how to squat properly and prevent future ACL tears, this is one example of the positives behind opening up an athlete to other disciplines.

"Over-training and ACL injuries don't help with the retention of young athletes," he said.

'Hard decisions' necessary for Malta to win elusive Olympic medal

He believes that it will be very difficult for Malta to win an Olympic medal unless a long-term plan is undertaken and hard decisions are made to strive towards this goal.

Bezzina suggested that a regulatory body should see, and maybe enforce, that all coaches across all sporting disciplines are qualified to coach the levels they are teaching, that is, national coaches must have the qualifications to coach at an elite level and beginner coaches must be qualified to coach the grassroots. He said that this would be a positive push for coaches to continue their own continuous development.

He also called for all sports associations/federations to come together and collaborate more with one another for Malta to strive towards decorated Olympic success.

At the time of writing, Team Malta is slowly gearing up for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, USA. Despite the Maltese islands featuring in 18 editions of the Summer Olympics over a whole century, stretching as far back as the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, Malta has not yet won an Olympic medal in its sporting history.

During this interview, Bezzina discussed some of the factors behind why Malta hasn't yet achieved that elusive Olympic medal, as well as what can be done to improve the country's chances in the long-term.

He told this newsroom that being such a small country is a natural limitation which must be acknowledged, since "it's a game of numbers too". Larger countries have millions in population to recruit from - a privilege Malta will never enjoy. Because of this and other sociocultural reasons, Malta struggles to find athletes over 20 years of age, he said.

However, several small countries - including some smaller than Malta - have been decorated on the Olympic podium in the past. In Europe, both Iceland and San Marino have finished in the top three of past Olympic Games' disciplines; Iceland has four Olympic medals (two silver and two bronze) while San Marino earned three Olympic medals (one silver and two bronze), all during the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021.

Bezzina said that it is unfeasible for any country to simply aim to win an Olympic medal two years before Summer Games, "unless they have a genetic anomaly who will dominate regardless of development".

Referencing Iceland, which currently has a population of under 400,000 people, Bezzina said that the Nordic country first developed a long-term development plan for their young Icelandic athletes before achieving success. Its four medals were won in the respective Games held in 1956, 1984, 2000 and 2008.

Going back to Malta, Bezzina reiterated the need for the country's sports authorities or associations to develop long-term athlete development plans, and heeding this from youth level. The sports aficionado stressed the importance of implementing delay specialisation at youth level to bolster these development programmes where coaching staff are able to.

In addition, he described that "from a youth level, we have to create a system that really focuses on not losing anyone involved". He described that nowadays, certain sports in Malta have many youths under their wings but then struggle to make up the numbers for the adult teams - this is where foreign athletes come in, he added.

Bezzina continued that for such a tiny country, perhaps prioritising an Olympic medal should come through the heavy investment of a handful of sports - since heavily investing in every existing sport, with Malta's limited population, would be an inefficient use of funds.

He suggested that Malta's best shot at winning an Olympic medal could come through an individual sport, since honing a team of top-quality athletes is, in theory, a greater challenge.

Concluding this interview, Bezzina told this newsroom that for the Maltese sports sector to progress more prosperously, "we need to stop viewing sports just as distinct disciplines and instead promote a more holistic sports education within each of them". For example, this could be attained by looking into how, for example, the gymnastics association can assist the football association, by seeing how SportMalta can allocate its resources or by how the MOC could improve its funding allocation.

Bezzina said that Malta is doing a lot right as a country, especially in granting more sporting opportunities and promoting physical activity, though considering the islands' small population, "we cannot afford to work against each other, we must work together".